• aerospacepat pulls off a pretty good attempt, and holds the honor of being first to post a response:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aujX6X7Hoto
• alexserbia89 grooves it with the drums on his keyboard. He even got some of the parts that weren’t transcribed… Nice chops, Alex!
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sufZ_EMpU

Excellent stuff! If you’re working on any of the stuff in my videos, shoot some video and post them as video responses! First, I love to see other people get these down. Second, I’ll be happy to offer tips/suggestions — if you want ‘em :)

In addition, friend and reader, Dirk Bertels has honored me with putting some snippets from the first funk groove in as one of the built-in demos for his cool Piano Groove Tutor.

Find the ‘Launch’ button on his page to bring this cool beast up. It provides a musical view of Midi Files which shows some notation, and highlights the playing of that notation on an onscreen keyboard. You can freely change the tempo to anything you’d like, enable/disable the right or left hand, backing rythm and metronome. This could really develop into a great practice tool!

Here’s a quick clip of my simplistic MIDI sound card rendering up this funky little section:

http://www.aqua-web.com/assets/PianoGrooveTutor-Funk1.mp3

Dirk’s other default demos include some very tasty traditional latin piano parts, so be sure to check that out as well.

It’s so very cool to see these things find their way out onto the net!

Until next time,

- Jonathon

I’ve been trying. Really trying.

Honest.

I’ve gotten my second funk groove all written, and I can actually play it(!) but with summer vacations and busy work schedules, I haven’t found the time to get the video for it put together yet. So lets spin this into a positive, shall we? Read on…

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A number of people have requested transpositions of the 30 must-have blues licks into other keys. Thanks to software, this is very easy! You can now get PDF files for the 30 blues licks in most of the major keys. I’ve also uploaded the raw Finale file, so if you have that software, you can take them and bend them to your will! See below for links to them all. (more…)

Here’s the final demo of the series (after the break), where I run through a bunch of the licks from the series. Scroll down for links to the downloadable music (as a PDF), downloadable MP3 files of the backing tracks and links to the entire series.
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While shooting some video at a local park, I was disappointed with the quality of the onboard microphone’s audio. I remembered stumbling across a web site describing a way to make a pair of binaural mics using an Altoids box. So… I decided to try and make something for myself. (more…)

Techniques Used in How to Play a Funk Groove on the Piano (PDF).

I hope it helps — I’m always happy to answer questions. Just post a comment, that way the answer will be there for others who might have the same question.

UPDATE: By request, I’ve also posted two versions of the backing drum loop I used in the videos for your practicing! Unfortunately, I don’t have it at a variety of speeds. You would be able to slow it down using audio software (such as the free Audacity ). There is a single time through the loop — if you use Audacity, you can create as long of a loop as you’d like. I’ve also uploaded a 5-minute loop.

• Loopable Drum Backing (loop on your own in audio software, 35k)
• 5 minutes of the drum backing groove (4.7 mb)

In high school and college, I used to sit in front of my music gear for hours making little grooves just for fun. It would stretch on into the night and early morning, and it really wasn’t about wanting to be a rock star… it was about having a good time making music, regardless of who heard it.

Now, of course, I’m approaching 40, and with my job, my house, my family, and no space for the old music gear, it just doesn’t happen much these days. (more…)