Music Lesson: Exploring Key of D

So now I'm going to just talk about this new key for a second. If you're doing something in the key of D for the first time, you might want to refresh your knowledge of triads:

• D Major: F sharp in the middle
• G Major: All white notes
• A Major: C sharp in the middle

Of course, we're also playing seventh chords. So now check your sevenths with all of them:

• G7: Should have a flattened seventh, triad on the bottom, flattened seventh on top, all white notes.
• A7: Has to have a C sharp and a G on top.

Triplets and Coordination

Now let's start by going back to barrel house and playing some triplet thirds, which are an important feature of this piece, Bouncy Boogie. You need to develop a coordination of having three notes on every beat in the right hand.

• We're going to go for the 5th and 7th of the D7
• Move next door to the G and that'll be the 3rd and 5th
• The A will also be 3rd and 5th

All those notes are right next to each other in the right hand.

Passing Notes

I'm going to put some flat fives in as passing notes as well on the first note of every bar. So there's a 12-bar blues in D with thirds triplets in the right hand:

• 5th and 7th on the D
• 3rd and 5th on the other chords

Make sure you can play it like that with Barrel House before you attempt it with the left hand shuffle.

Shuffle Practice

Here's a sort of truncated version of this with the shuffle. So I've shortened the sequence there, focusing on the chord changes.

• If you have difficulty with any of those, loop them.
• For instance, play A and G alternating one bar each.

Practice the changes that are causing you a problem rather than always doing the whole 12 bars.

Thirds Lick

Now I'm going to look at the other component of this tune, which is this thirds lick. What's happening here is we're actually using all the notes of the scale.

• For the D chord, we're using a D major scale but with a C natural in to fit the D7 chord on the G.

The scale will be this:

• That's a G7 scale. Because of the flattened seventh, G major without F sharp, wouldn't it?
• The A scale has C sharp and F sharp in.

Remember the flattened seventh, G natural. So using those notes, we can generate this thirds lick.

Practice in Different Keys

We can practice those three in F, G, and A as well. Once you can do it with barrel house, upgrade to left hand shuffle in G and A.

Combining Elements

So those are the two components of Bouncy Boogie. You'll notice on the G, I went to the triplets with a pickup, which we've stolen, if you like, from blues with pickups from the previous lesson.

Now, to finish, I'm going to put all these things together and also take some elements from some of the previous pieces you've learnt and put them in the mix in a kind of loose way rather than moving rigidly from one piece to the next.

For instance, once you've played Bouncy Boogie as given, you could move on to say, Barrel House Blues, but you'll have to learn it in this key, Barrel House Blues in D.

You'll remember doing that piece in part one in lesson 10, but now we're in a new key and we really should upgrade it to the shuffle as well.

Think of some other things you can do. For instance, Blues for Sal, which we did in lesson 12 in part one. Remember that one?

All of these are ideas that you can use in any combination. You can do blues with pickups from the previous lesson starting on D.

Conclusion

Alright, I'm going to put all those things together now. See if you can spot what right hand ideas come from what piece.