How to play piano blues – left hand variations Part I

Here is the basic left hand rhythm which we used in the tutorial ‘How to play piano blues, part one and part two‘:

We are now going to progress onto a slightly harder left hand, which uses the same notes as above, but with a different rhythm. Sometimes you may see this written in quavers only, which looks like this:

However, this is not exactly how you play it as you have to hold some of the notes slightly longer, and then skip off the next note. Here’s how I would prefer to write it –

What do you think? It may look complicated, but it’s not as difficult as it seems. You’ll understand what I mean once you hear it. Here’s how it sounds:

The best way to describe the rhythm and movement of this left hand is to compare it to the sound of a train. A good example of this is a famous song by Meade Lux Lewis called – Honky Tonk Train Blues, which has this same left hand rhythm.

Fingering – this is very straight forward and only involves the fingers 1, 2 & 5. You’ll notice that in the score above I have put some suggested fingering underneath the notes. Please note that some people prefer to just use 5 & 1 and don’t use the 2 at all. This is up to you, but I prefer using the 2.

Now it’s time to play the next part of the 12-bar blues chord progression. Here’s the full score which includes all 3 chords of C, F & G:

Here’s how it sounds:

Now, if we add the right hand in from the previous tutorial over the top, here’s how it looks:

And here’s how it sounds:

Now have a look at Left Hand Variations – part 2.