First chorus

First Chorus Overview

So, yeah, let's move on and look at the first chorus.

Left Hand Technique

• We hit the left hand.
• It's nice to have this nice and solid from the word go.
• For the bass line, I'm playing it with my third finger to the second, then playing the G and the A with the thumb.
• You could also use the fourth finger.
• In fact, I might actually switch between the two different points in the song.

Tip: Start practicing at a low tempo. Get that nice and solid under your fingers.

Practice Tips

• Practice it around the whole 12-bar sequence until it's really solid.
• Increase the tempo gradually.
• Always practice with a metronome. It's really useful for getting to know where you're speeding up and slowing down in relation to a tempo.

Note: Music can't speed up and slow down, it's got to breathe.

Performance Context

• Especially in this music, which would have been played for dancing and entertaining, consider the energy of the room.
• If you're in a room full of people dancing, you're going to want to go with the energy.
• If there's more energy coming at you, it doesn't matter if things speed up a little. It's all about reciprocating that energy.

Key Insight: That's where the excitement is.

Right Hand Technique

In this first chorus, we've got the left hand, and then we got this figure in the right hand.

• Listening to the transcription, it's hard to tell if it's just the G and C at the top, or the full octave.
• It doesn't drastically change things, but feel free to play it how you want.
• This is a very classic Pete Johnson thing to do.

Improvisation Ideas

You could imagine this in a more improvisational context around 12 bars.

• I was overdoing it there, using it quite a lot, but it's a great little musical idea you can put into your own improvisations.
• Consider doing slight variations with that kind of riff.

Practicing the Riff:

• Have a go with that little riff and link it with other ideas.
• It's a nice little one, very Pete Johnson.

Turnaround

Then we go into the turnaround on the V chord of this first chorus.

• There are little embellishments, so get those under your fingers at speed.
• Those can be quite fast, especially those embellishments.
• Really practice them.

Classic Riffs: That's another very classic Pete Johnson swinging, jazz-influenced riff.

Incorporating Lines

Maybe you could practice incorporating these into your own phrases.

• Lines like that are very much in the Pete Johnson style.
• There are lots of little, single-note lines that Pete Johnson uses, which is kind of different from a lot of Albert Ammons' stuff that is very riff-based.

Conclusion: We'll get to the other lines as we move forward.