One of the easiest things you can learn when taking beginner piano lessons is the standard blues progression. The really interesting thing is the vast body of non-blues music that uses the same basic musical pattern.
Virtually everyone in the whole world has heard music called "the blues" but only musicians know what makes the blues sound different from all other music. In this discussion, I will explain not only what is different about the blues, but how it stacks up against most other forms of popular music.
Just about all musical compositions are written in one specific key. There are few exceptions, like the really complicated piece; "Giant Steps" by the amazing jazz saxophone player John Coltrane. The key the tune is written in has a key signature indicating the number of flats or sharps, and also has a tonic, or root. This is the first note in the musical scale for that key and is referred to as "one". Four notes up in the scale lies the "fourth" and one higher is the "fifth", which always resolves back to the "one". These three tones are the basis for every blues song ever written, and are known as the "one-four-five" progression.
What fascinates nearly ever beginner taking piano lessons, is the fact that literally millions of songs use the same progression, like the song "Billy Jean" by the late superstar Michael Jackson, or nearly every Allman Brothers piece ever written. People don't necessarily equate these songs as having anything to do with straight blues. (Allman Brother music IS known as "Southern Blues", however)
Many people associate "The Blues" with music that was officially invented in the Mississippi Delta, like the sounds of Muddy Waters, but the same basic progression was common to early Rock and Roll, as was the Ragtime writings of Scott Joplin. Even Django Reinhardt was deeply immersed in the old one-four-five.
Now, moving away from these classic sounds, we find that nearly every other piece of contemporary music relates the same progression as the blues, albeit with some variations. Known as "substitutions", these are chords that replace the "four" and/or the "five" before eventually coming back home to the tonic (one), where your ear always wants the song to return, or resolve to.
This is vitally important to anyone beginning to learn piano who wants to learn to play by ear, or try to figure out the chord progressions of any specific piece. No matter what the key is, most music is either a close or distant relative of the favorite one-four-five. And that's a fact.
Elliot Steiner has been involved in the music industry for over forty years and is a staunch advocate of quality beginner piano lessons.
To learn how you can get your own Free six-part piano lessons go to: http://insanebeginnerpianolessons.com
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