St. James Infirmary Blues - piano tutorial

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St James Infirmary Blues is a very famous New Orleans blues based on an old English folk song. The video includes an examination of the blues' chord sequence (which is very different from a standard 12 bar), and some thoughts on the best blues scale to use to create improvisations in a minor key.

This is a great piece to help you practise your blues improvisation for a couple of reasons. First, it takes you beyond a traditional 12 bar blues structure. 12 bar is great, but it's kind of easy to get stuck in a rut with it. Here, you're dealing with a different type of progression, and in a minor key too. Second, it's still straightforward enough for you to be able to internalize the chord progression on the piano and start thinking about improvisation quickly, rather than having to spend hours learning a complicated sequence.

A couple of harmonic points: this version of St. James is in the key of D minor (which is probably the most common key you'll find it in). If you know a little theory, you'll know that D minor is the relative minor of F major. Therefore, you pretty much use the F blues scale as a starting point for your improvisation. Dm is generally a pretty easy key on the piano, so once you've got a hang of the chords you should haven't too many problems.

If you have any questions on this, or any other aspects of blues piano, don't hesitate to give me a shout. I'm going to keep posting tutorials, and you're more likely to get the ones you want if you ask for them :)

Видео St. James Infirmary Blues - piano tutorial канала Bill Hilton