Blues Piano – Complete Guide with Online Audio | Keyboard Instruction Sheet Music Songbook | Learn Blues Piano Scales, Chords and Soloing Techniques | Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series

I'm a blues guitarist and I'm in the early stages of learning to play piano, so I can't give the most credible of reviews of this book yet, but I can tell you that it's chock-full of really, really, REALLY excellent comps and vamps and licks. So far I'm only able to work on the simplest of the stuff early in the book, but I've listened to the CD the whole way through, and it's just one example after another after another of killer riffs, the kind of stuff that makes me think, "YES...that is what I want to be able to play." In all kinds of blues styles.This is definitely *not* a beginner book. As I said, most of it is still way beyond me. It's not a "here's what the half-rest looks like" kind of book, nor will you find guides for fingering. One of the first signs that told me that this book is still over my head is that it shows chords like, say, a 9th chord, with all five notes shown, in a key where it appears to me that there's no possible way one hand can hit all of those notes. Does the experienced player just hit a broken chord? Is it supposed to be a two-handed chord, even though it's shown in the bass clef, and there are also notes in the treble clef? I don't know.So this is a book for people who already have some piano playing ability. But the material is terrific, and there's a ton of it. If I can ever learn to play all, or even half, of the stuff in this book, I'll be a happy man.

This is a great step by step introduction to blues riffs, chords and solos. I only have two complaints: firstly, it is somewhat inconsistent in the ability level that it targets. It assumes that you can sight read well, transpose into other keys, work out complicated fingering yourself etc, yet it also spends a lot of time on very simple scales and chords. A beginner will be confused a lot of the time, a good pianist trained in other styles will find much of it boring, and someone in between (like me) will alternate between the two states. Secondly, the CD is annoying in that there are so many tracks - 88 if I remember rightly. Every short exercise, even only a few seconds, has its own track, and many have both slow and fast versions.If you are a beginner, you will need a more comprehensive book (not necessarily blues specific) to help you along. If you are a bit better than that, I would suggest using the book in reverse order. Listen to the full length songs at the end and learn the ones you like. Then work backwards to figure out the building blocks and how to use them yourself.

Book goes through the basics of playing the blues, but is you are a person that wants to play blues immediately youmay need a little patients. It starts out heavy in theory. Hopefully giving you a depth in the art. For me I knew most of what was in here and I need patients to review the material. Remember you got to start somewhere. I hope next time this book is redone it starts our with a cool blues song to play.

This book is very special and you have to practicing a lot to understanding the concept of every section on it. It is for beginner intermediate even advance piano player. But when you practice that book make sure you going very slowly.

If you are on a budget and don't have a lot of free time, but still want to sit down at a party or open mike and wail the blues, this is the book for you. In chapter 2 you get 20 or so authentic left hand patterns. In chapter 3 you learn a variety of chords from basic triads to sharped fifths and ninths with various timing tricks for comping. And you play those over the left hand patterns you learned in chapter 2. In chapter 4 Harrison introduces the grace note technique and takes it thru Dr. John's "famous lick". That's 90% of what you need to play convincing blues. The key is that Harrison keeps everything in two measure units that you can easily combine. You aren't confronted with a 4 bar melody as in some other books, wondering, "Why am I playing this?" This book dosen't cover everything, but if you learn to play the exercises in this book you will sound good. If you have a few extra bucks, buy Tim Richard's book for a complementary approach.

This is a great book. I've been playing piano most of my life, but I've been feeling frustrated with being sheet-music-dependent and just relying on reading every note on the page without having a deeper understanding of the music or ability to improvise. In frustration, one day I ordered about 4 instructional books and set about trying to broaden my playing ability and understanding of music...and this turned out to be the gem among the books I ordered. It is GREAT!! It is fairly easy to understand and having the CD to play along with is so valuable. I've learned a lot about rhythm and feel, and I would highly recommend this book. It is a lot of fun to work through the exercises and I am confident that if I stick to it my playing will continue to improve.

I took lessons from my church's pianist when I was a child, and after she moved away, I never really got a lot better, but still tried to practice when I could. Although I can sight-read sheet music with the best of them, I could never just "play around", improvise, and God forbid, actually play with other musicians.This book changed all that.I was able to learn simple chord and blues patterns, and learn how they are structured. Although I am still working on improvising, I can at least lay down a nice blues pattern, and people can play along with it. So much fun!The CD is a great help. I pop it into my car cd player and listen to it in traffic.Overall, an excellent book.

This is really quite a good book. Concepts are explained quite well, and the exercises fit the concept they are trying to get across. Blues piano is not rocket science but it does have an important part. This book gives you a good start in understanding it.The CD does not add a lot of value. It is cheesy MIDI computer sound at its worst. I think if they would have used a real accoustic piano, or even a better sampled sound with a good MIDI controller, you might get a better feel for what the exercises are really supposed to sound like.

Great book - very good condition - as described from world of books Definitely order from them again.

Learning the Blues is the essencial base for any rock, pop, jazz and of course Blues. I found this book very interesting the information is well presented and right on the money. It has the theory on how to get to the blues scales and chords. And the best party is... it's a fun book because it also has musics to learn and play. And i think it's a book that i'll keep near the piano so i'm always taking a look.

not easy

Incomprehensible. Save your money.

This is an excellent value, well presented package, broken down into manageable chunks and the link between the CD and book is straightforward (much better than other book / CD sets I have) so you can hear what you should be playing, which is often an aid to learning in itself - especially when you're trying to get the timing and rhythm of a piece right.One of the joys of blues piano is that it is accessible to new starters as even simple compositions can sound ... bluesy. However, you should know that you need to be able to read music to use this book - or at least be able to figure out the notes before playing them. Having seen learner books jam packed with notes for where your fingers should be, names of notes and key diagrams, I much prefer just to see the notation and go from there (and I've been learning for about 2 months).