How many bass players does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, the piano player can do it with his left hand. In this IROCKU Tip we'll learn how to play walking bass lines with our left hand. Walking bass lines are used throughout rock, jazz, and blues. For the chord progression in this lesson, we use the E twelve-bar blues progressions. As piano players we like to play in the key of C but if you are playing in a band, guitarists prefer playing in the keys of E or A. It’s pretty rare for a guitarist to call out a blues song in C so as keyboardists we need to learn the guitar keys. In this video we teach how to create your own walking bass lines using a quarter-note groove. We start out with a walking bass line using just the root and fifth of each chord. We then add lower …
walking basslines
IROCKU Piano Tips – Chord Extensions
This week’s IROCKU Piano Tip looks at Chord Extensions. Chord Extensions are the notes outside of a chord that you can use to enhance the chord. The video begins by adding the dominant 7th note to a chord, and then adds the 9th along with showing the different chord inversions. We explore the 9th by raising it up a half step to the sharp 9th and by lowering it a half step to the flat 9th to add harmonic tension and funky variations to your chords. The video then introduces these chord extensions into a 12 bar jazz/blues progression in C: I7- V7-I7-I7 IV7-IV7-I7-VI7 II7-V7-I7-I7 The video goes through the progression using just dominant 7th chords, then using 9th chords and then adds in sharp 9ths and flatted 9ths to add even more color. The video ends with an introduction …