Customer Reviews

Improvising Blues Piano

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you can play a little piano say grade 2 or 3 and like the blues you will get a lot out of this book. Beautifully presented with pictures of the masters and different types of blues, takes a slow and easy progression from very basic triads to simple but really terrific sounding stuff to the more complex stuff. He encourges you to experiment and improvise and truely teaches ways to do this. Happily for my nieghbours I have headphones on my piano! CD has all the music on it with some different versions in triplet feel etc. Richards is a performer and teaches at a London music college. Certainly helped me. If you want to learn the blues this is really nice book. The book has its own web site so hunt around. Allows you to download a very nice blues and the sheet music to it.

This is a great book! I'm a beginning/intermediate piano player, I went through the first two Alfred's All-in-One Adult piano books and really enjoyed them (and recommend them!). But I found myself at a fork in the road: I was happy to continue memorizing "pieces", and practicing "technique", but I found myself wanting to know more about improvising. I play drums in a blues band, and I've had some music theory for keyboard percussion, so I'm not a total musical-novice. I tried out some other books (Mark Harrison's "Blues Piano: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series", but it's still a little over my head, perhaps in a year or so it'll be good for me. Also "David Bennett Cohen Teaches Blues Piano: A Hands-On Course in Traditional Blues Piano", but it really didn't light my fire either, and if I recall correctly, didn't have finger markings which I still find helpful.) This book pulls it all together for me: some blues music theory, some blues history, clearly-marked "assignments", a CD included, (a spiral binding that lays flat on the stand!) ... I'm hooked!

I've bought several other blues piano books over the years, and in my opinion this one outclasses them all. The pieces sound great, and the pacing of the material is fantastic. The book does a great job of slowly introducing the idea of improvisation, by encouraging mixing and matching ideas from the different pieces. It also goes into ideas like horizontal and vertical improvisation without making it too intimidating, and introduces some blues "cliche" endings and turnarounds. It covers many different styles from barrelhouse to stride to jazz blues.

The included CD lets you know how this stuff is really supposed to sound, and it's got a full "Recommended Listening" in an appendix if you want to explore further. All around one of the best instructional musical texts I've seen.

I'm not a good pianist but I'm playing blues bass since more than 20 years.
I did purchased a lot of books, but this one is really the best. When my teacher saw it, he immediately ask where he could purchased it.

A lot of songs, exercises and explanation
The book is not only about improvising, it's also about all kind of left-hand pattern and I know what I'm talking about. The example on the CD are also great

If at first looks it seems expensive you will see that it is worth every penny

This is, by far, the best blues piano book out there. Mark Harrison's book is also good, but more as a quick guide for those who already have some chops and some understanding of theory.

Richards' book is a full course in Blues theory and practice and as such, you have to work through it. I've been at it for 14 months now and have just finished the second chapter. The material is perfectly paced for a pianist of my level (about Gr. 2-3, RCM, 30+ years ago). The pieces are fun to play and jam packed with important ideas and blues cliches. I'm really starting to see the beginnings of true hand independence that works , not only when I play memorized pieces, but that I can invoke when trying improvisations!

If you want to play professional-level blues piano in a month, then this is not the book for you. If, however, you live in the real world and are prepared to work at it, this book will do more than show a few riffs or tricks. It will give you a deep and firm foundation in popular piano improvisation in general, and blues in particular. I estimate I'll be another couple of years with this book and I can't wait to get back to it!

This book is a work of genius. Thank you, Tim Tichards!

I'm an aspiring jazz pianist in Canada (I'm 32). I'm another one of the victims of the classical music education system that was taught to read the page and nothing else. I always thought that people who were good at jazz and could play by ear were born that way.

When I was in high school I wanted to play jazz piano. Someone recommended the Mark Levine book to me. I tried going through it but gave up because I couldn't even figure out what a II-V was from his explanation. I figured jazz was this impenetrable language. I was sick of classical lessons by that time and gave up the piano.

Fast forward ten years when I decided I didn't want all those hours of practicing (before school, even) to go to waste. I headed to a local music store and literally went through every piano book before I found IBP. It's pretty much been a revelation, from discussions of notations to chord types to ideas. I still suck at improvising, but before this book I wouldn't have even tried.

I've got Tim's other two books on my shelf, patiently waiting for me to get to them. Seriously, his books are phenomenal. If I had found IBP back in high school instead of Mark Levine's brick wall of jazz accessibility, I might be ten years ahead. I can't recommend it highly enough. Rumour has it he's working on a fourth book about Latin piano, too.

Now and then you run across a method book that makes you a better player and is great fun to work through. "Improvising Blues Piano" is one such book. It starts out very simply and steadily progresses to a pretty sophisticated level. The accompanying disk is well recorded and the author's playing, particularly his timing, is quite musical. On most examples, if you can make your playing sound like Tim Richards, you'll really swing.

Starting in "C" and moving on to other familiar blues keys, the author mixes theory and practice in a logical progression of "bite sized" lessons that are very complete and doesn't assume anything about the student. At first, the experienced player may find the pace a bit slow but each section builds smoothly upon the foundation of the preceding material and I think it's worth while to patiently work on your weaknesses. When you can make those first simple exercises sound really musical, you've learned something valuable.

The volume is accessible to beginners (this will take you a long way) while remaining useful for the more advanced because there is so much good content. I particularly like that he weaves in biographical information of known blues players along with examples of their style. The history of blues unfolds along with the student's expanding ability to play.

If you are interested in the blues, I can't think of a better learning tool.

There realy are not many great methods for the blues out there, but Tim Richards is thorough and goes into the required detail to show you how each blues style works.

The examples are very playable, suiting more or less an intermediate level pianist. Richards is one of the few take-away instruction teachers to be concerned about fingerings, and takes the trouble to suggest good ones. His playing instructions work very well and add a dimension that you don't often get in these method books - he has a great insight into the chords, and the notes and the way they fit the music. The breakdown of theory is very well explained, if sometimes overdone. But he never floods you with scales without showing you how to apply them - that in itself is a good thing!

Richards' choice of music is impeccable, and calssic blues standards of af all styles are presented from boogie, to funk, slow blues, and some jazzy numbers. And he shows you music in a number of keys so you aren't stuck to one or two and get a work out in the other keys. I found the music very playable, and well sounding, although I didn't always find the improvising instructions that intuitive.

The historical background he gives is accurate and informative and the pictures of blues and jazz legends really make this book interesting.

My criticism of the book is that it should have stretched up to the more advanced techniques of the blues - where the top players are, like Oscar Peterson, for example. That is its dissapointment - a teacher as good as this who dedicated the time to work a out a progressive and different course in blues shouldn't have stopped at the middle level. He surely should have stretched us, his interested audience up to the highest level.

But this should not stop you from using this very useful and inspiring book - I Thank you sincerely Tim.

I grew up learning to sightread classical music; a pretty standard set of piano lessons. Unfortunately, those lessons were weak on the theory of how music is created. This is a great book for someone like me who now wants to understand how to start in a key and figure out how to combine chords and rhythm and the right notes to make music. The book has things like how the blues scale works, how to pound out a barrelhouse left hand while improvising with the right hand, turnarounds and endings, and much more. There are some tunes in here to learn (Blueberry Hill, Pine Top's Boogie Woogie, etc.), but that's not really the point--Tim Richards goes on to explain how those tunes were created, and how to change and improvise over them. The CD lets you hear the exercises, and is quite helpful. I looked around a lot, and bought some definitely inferior books, before finding this one. The author also wrote Exploring Jazz Piano, volumes 1 and 2, which basically build on this book. I recommend buying all three. No book is going to substitute for practice, but if you practice what's in these books you're going to love what you learn to do.

I am a classically trained pianist with 10 years of jazz study. This is one of the best instructional music books that I have purchased (definitely the best blues book by far). The material is logical and explained beautifully. What I really like is that the material is interchangeable. You can take ideas and mix and match them and create your own improvisations instantly. Tim gives you just the right amount of new material at a time. Perfectly paced and not overwhelming. I would and have recommended this book to anyone who is interested in improving their blues playing. I wouldn't buy this book if I were not a decent reader and familiar with basic chord progressions. More advanced players can get plenty out of the book. I enjoy putting the exercises into keys like Gb and C#, which provide a nice additional challenge. Thanks, Tim for taking the time to write a great book. I'm having a blast (50 year old mother of three).