Hi, readers! This month I wanted to give you a few keyboard clichés that you will see in one form or another on almost every kind of gig or recording you are involved in. I’ve actually found that it’s hard to get through a night without doing all of these examples a few times. We
sometimes think of music as being a very complicated library of knowledge but as I get older, I start to realize that you can get tons of mileage out of just a few key concepts. Let’s look at a few examples of these very common keyboard riffs. I've played audio examples on piano, but you
can play these riffs on any instrument.Ex. 1 Barrel House BluesEx. 1 is a Barrel House Blues piano riff popularized by New Orleans pianists like Professor Longhair and Dr. John. You can use this lick in almost every kind of situation and I rarely get through a blues piano gig without doing it quite a few times. Bar 1 has a rolling figure that starts on the 13th of the chord. Even though this lick is to be used over an F13 chord that has a major 3rd, we borrow the Ab from the F Blues Scale (F, Ab, Bb, B, C, Eb, F). On the triplet in beat 3, try to roll the Ab into the G by playing both notes with the 3rd finger. This gives the lick a sloppy, bluesy sound. Bar 2 uses a double chromatic embellishing tone from two half steps below to approach note A, the major third, then springs up to the 7th and 9th of the chord. The last 2 bars of the example uses notes from the F blues scale and F major pentatonic scale (F, G, A, C, D, F).Ex. 2 Crunchy 4thsExample 2 is another blues riff that relies on crunchy blue notes and fourth intervals to achieve it’s aim . We are in the key of E now and use notes exclusively from the E blues scale. When playing blues licks, it
sounds great to play notes from the scale together at the same time. This sounds great with 4ths and dissonant notes like the “blue note”, Bb. In Bar 1 we sound the 7th, D, while we work out a blues riff below on the E blues scale (E, G, A, Bb B, D, E). In bars 1 and 2 we use the blue note as a grace note approaching the 5th of the chord which is a great crunchy sound especially on organ. Bar 3 has a repetitive triplet idea similar to Ex. 1. Try to get the same type of rolling, lazy sound for authenticity.
