57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Blues Riff Book, April 7, 2000
This review is from: 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs for Piano/Keyboards (Book and CD) (Paperback)
It has been somewhat difficult for the intermediate/advanced piano player to find a book of riffs and melodic ideas to add to their blues repetoire. This book, "100 Ultimate Riffs" is just what you're looking for..and it delivers what it's name implies. "100 Ultimate Riffs" provides a good mixture of chords and individual note runs that you would expect from such a book. It also provides riffs in different keys, wih a variety of rhythms.
NOTE: The riffs may be too daunting for the beginner, but anyone from early intermediate onwards will find useful and fun blues riffs in this book.
This is not a "how to" book, nor is it a compliation of blues "standards". This book does not provide theory or concept on progressions, turnarounds, etc....it is what it's name implies, a riffs book.
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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Has tons of great sounding blues riffs!, September 17, 2006
This review is from: 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs for Piano/Keyboards (Book and CD) (Paperback)
There are an absurd amount of Blues Piano books out there, most of which suck, and don't actually teach you how to play, or teach you only by sight reading where your hands and ears don't know the blues sound well enough. There are three exceptions though, and the three wonderful blues piano books that should be mandatory for anyone looking to learn and improve, be they beginner or advanced intermediate, are:
1. Blues Piano -- Mark Harrison
2. Improvising Blues -- Tim Richards
3. 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs for Piano/Keyboards -- Andrew Gordon.
The first two out of the above mentioned three really take the time to give you a step by step method for understanding all of the blues genre, and how to develop both hands playing it, the scales, chordal theory, etc, along with dozens of great riffs. This book doesn't do that; it is, like other people have mentioned, a strict runs/licks book. However, with the examples chosen, you couldn't ask for more.
The riffs in this book are excellent; a lot of books on the blues, and people playing the blues, use some really cheesy riffs that sound very uncreative, uninspiring, and far too white. This book really hammers in tons of great sounding, truly bluesy riffs. It covers everything from funk, gospel, jazz, boogie woogie, n. orleans, and rock n' roll type of blues, and the way he transcribes the licks note for note really allows the player (with lots of practice!) to get a nice Ray Charles sound...aka: sounding natural, musical, and unforced.
I also like the fact that they aren't all in one key; I find that if a book uses only C or G then that leaves the door open to not practicing in other keys. This book forces you to learn different riffs in all kinds of different keys, and is one of the biggest reasons I was finally able to overcome my hesitancy with being able to transpose very common licks and runs into some of the harder keys to play that have more sharps/flats.
This book is great for both beginners through advanced intermediate...an invaluable resource to finally learn the riffs we've all heard thousands of times yet can't figure out ourselves. (The CD that comes with the book is great...played nice and slowly so you don't feel rushed, you can very clearly hear what's being played, and they are note for note transcriptions of the sheet music examples in the book).
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learn exactly what makes blues different from other styles, November 3, 2001
This review is from: 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs for Piano/Keyboards (Book and CD) (Paperback)
For someone coming from playing a different style (classification ) of music this book is a must have.You can use it constantly as a reference tool.It could be useful to a beginner if they have the time and energy to spend with it but, would be more useful to the intermediate player. I'd listened to a lot of blues thinking that I would pick up the style from c.d's (Jimmy Yancy,Ray Charles,Vann Walls,Jay McShann Meade Lux Lewis etc ).I did pick up a lot but was left feeling I was missing a lot,and that's where thhe 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs came to my help.My reading is fairly good but I think that with blues a c.d is a must so that you can get more of a "feel " for the music.At first,I thought playing blues was very simple and that the music itself was very simple.100 Ultimate Blues Riffs has helped me understand how to play and how to listen to Blues;and how to appreciate the music.
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