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Learning the E Blues Scale, like any other blues scale, can seem a little overwhelming.

When you are used to playing the more simple major scales, a blues scale can be a little more intimidating.

Let’s not let it get the best of us.

I’m going to show you an easy to use method to construct and master the this scale.

What are we waiting for? Let’s jump right in.

Notes in the E Blues Scale

The notes that make up this scale are E, G, A, Bb, B, D, and E.

There are seven notes in the scale, six different notes, and a repeated “E” note know as an octave. This octave completes the scale making an entire Blues Scale.

Take a look at the image below and you will see the notes labeled on the piano keyboard.

Make sure you take a listen to the audio file to hear this scale in action.

If you look carefully at the notes you will notice that they are all white keys except for one. This makes it easy when playing this scale.

Remember that you need to exclude both F and C when playing this scale.

Notation

Take a look at the image below to see the notes of this scale on the piano staff.

The only note affected in this scale is the Bb. There is one B Natural and one Bb. The first B is Flat and the second B is a Natural.

In other words: Play a B note, and the black note directly to the left of B in this scale.

How to Build The E Blues Scale

Once you learn the basics of constructing a blues scale there’s nothing to building the E scale.

There are two ways that you can successfully build this scale:

• By adjusting the E Major Scale
• Using Whole Steps and Half Steps

Let’s start by looking at the easiest of the two methods

Comparing to the E Major Scale

If you are able to build an E Major Scale, then you can easily build the E Blues.

There is a simple formula that you can apply to E Major Scale which gives you the E Blues.

First…… Let’s start by looking at the E Major Scale.

The notes in the E Major Scale are E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, and E.

Take a look at the image and see the notes in the E Major Scale.

Second…… You need to adjust a few notes in the E Major Scale. To do this you need to flat the third note, fifth note, and seventh note in the E Major Scale.

Take a look at the image to see how these notes are changed to create the E Blues Scale.

Quick Tip!
Blues Scale Formula: b3, b5, b7

Whole Steps and Half Steps

Another formula that you can follow to build the E Blues Scale is by using whole steps and half steps.

This method starts by finding the tonic note of the scale. Tonic is a fancy word to describe the note in which the scale is built around or the starting note, in this case E.

Starting on E you need to follow this formula of Whole Steps and Half Steps.

Whole Step + Half Step, Whole Step, Half Step, Half Step, Whole Step + Half Step, Whole Step

See the image for clarification on how this formula woks.

Fingering

Fingering for the E Blues Scale is a little different from any other scale you may have played. But because of the large jump from E to G you need to play this scale using a special fingering.

Right Hand Fingering

Ascending

To play this scale in the right hand yo need to start with the thumb on E. Play up the scale until you reach the Bb with your ring finger.

Once there, tuck your thumb under your ring finger to play the B. Then continue up the scale ending on the E with your middle finger.

Descending

Coming back down the scale you start with the third finger on E. Play down the scale using the index finger until you reach B with your thumb.

Cross over your thumb with the ring finger to play the Bb. Then continue down the scale playing each note in the scale with the remaining fingers ending on E.

Left Hand Fingering

Ascending

To play the E blues scale with the left hand you need to start on the E with your small finger. Play up the scale with the rest of the remaining fingers until you reach B with your thumb.

You then cross over your thumb with your middle finger to play D, and end the scale playing E with the index finger.

Descending

The descending scale starts with the index finger on E. Next play D with the middle finger.

You then cross under the middle finger with thumb and play B. You then finish off the scale with the remaining four fingers ending on E.

Use the E blues Scale to get rich soulful sound. This scale is great to use when improvising on blues song in E. Make sure to memorize each note in the scale and each method used above to construct the scale.

Once you learn the method for this scale you can then apply it to other blues scales to easily build them as well.

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A Minor Chord is different from most chords in the way they are built and the way they sound.

These chords sounds like the name implies, minor. A major chord sounds pretty and nice but minors sounds strange and mysterious.

These chords are used a lot in contemporary music. They aren’t used as much as major chords but without them all songs would sound the same. Adding these chords gives your music that deep mysterious sound and gives it depth that using only major chords doesn’t have.

Building A Minor Chord

If you can build a Major chord than you can build a Minor Chord. Go to my major Chord section if you need help with building major chords.

These chords are made the same way as major chords except with one difference. Instead of using the third note in the scale you minor the third note.

To minor a note means to lower it by a half step. This means you find the third note in the scale and move it to the left one note.

So if your third note is a G then move it one note to the left and now you have an F#.

Lets do an example to help you understand.

To find C Minor you need to first find the C major chord. Based on the lessons on finding major chords we know an C Major Chord is made up of C, E, and G. The C is the root, E is the third and G is the fifth.

Now all you have to do is move the third (the E) one note to the left to make it minor. So now the E is a Eb. So C Minor is made up of C, Eb, and G. Look at the image for reference.

Move the third note to left to make it minor.

Working in all keys

This process will work for every chord. So if you want to fin a Gb minor you just find the Major chord and move the middle note to left and you have made it minor.

Like everything on the piano and keyboard you will need to know all of these chords in every key. Some minor chords are going to be hard to play or awkward. This is ok. It takes time and practice to become a great piano player.

Don’t make the mistake of learning the majors and minors that you need to play your favorite song and not learning them in all the keys. What will happen is you will want to learn a new song and it will be in a different key then you will have to re-learn the chords again.

Take the time now to learn all your major and mior chords so you can play almost every song that you want.

Need more help learning chords? Learn almost every chord you’ll ever need with our Piano Chord Encyclopedia.

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Is Learning Piano Online possibe? You better believe it!

If you are interested in learning to play the piano, and don’t have the time for traditional lessons, then online lessons are a great way to learn piano.

Why Are Online Lessons So Great?

WHy Are Online Lessons So Great?

Flexibility

It is very flexible. If you are an adult trying to learn piano then you need something that is flexible. Online Lessons are the ideal situation for convenience. You can take your time and work at your own pace. If you take the more traditional method then you have to work at the pace of the instructor. This can be good because it motivates you to stay on task, but we all know that time is scarce and having a flexibility is always a Good Thing.

The Lessons Are Great

With the amount of information online these days you can find great quality websites that have amazing content. There are some amazing website out there that have amazing Free Lessons if you are learning piano online.

Along with these free lessons there are also some phenomenal paid lessons out there. There are some very talented teachers out there who have taken their talent of teaching and piano to make very comprehensive courses. They are made up of manuals and videos to really help guide the student to learn the piano in their unique way.

Very Concise

Because most people who are trying to learn the piano quickly because time is always an issue, online lessons tend to take out a lot of the fluff that traditional teachers don’t. There are a lot of things that piano instructors will teach you that are really unimportant.

I remember when I was taking lessons, all I did was learn a new song each week. I didn’t feel like I was learning anything that I could apply to my piano playing. I was still learning to read notes better and time, but I didn’t feel as though I was given much substance to get me to progress like I wanted.

I then started learning piano online and it gave me all the important parts that I needed and left out the rest that wasn’t as important.

Even thought they are concise they help you to learn everything you need to know to really succeed.

The Downside to Online Lessons

There are some downsides to leaning the piano through the internet.

One aspect is that you don’t have accountability that an instructor gives you. When you are taking real lessons you know that you are paying them money and know that if you don’t take time to practice then you feel like you are wasting your money.

Having personal training can be helpful too for those times when you are stuck and need an experienced piano player to explain something to help you. This can be one of the major downfalls of learning piano online because you don’t have that one on one help that you might need from time to time.

Conclusion

So are individual lessons better than online lessons? It all depends on your situation. I did both and feel that each individual person needs to evaluate what they want out of their lessons.

If you want a one on one, personal experience then traditional lessons are for you. If you are in a time crunch and want to save some money then look up free online lessons.

One of the best online courses out there right now is Rocket Piano. It gives you everything you need to really learn the piano. They have really taken their time to give you a complete guide for learning piano online. Its filled with video instructions to help clear up any questions you might have. Click Here to check out what Rocket Piano is all about.

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If you want to start playing the piano fast, then you need to learn piano chords. Playing chord piano is the easiest and quickest way for any beginner to start playing the piano today.

Learning to read piano sheet music is a great way to become a better musician but is not necessary to play the piano. You can simply learn how to play chords.

Playing keyboard chords allows you to pick up just about any song and start playing within a very short time. You don’t need to take years of piano lessons to play the piano. Just learn chords and you will be playing the piano in no time.

What’s A Chord?

So what are chords?

Chords are the foundation of music. Think of a chord like the foundation of a house. The foundation supports the rest of the house like chords support a piece of music.

Chords are the foundation for the melody of the song. Playing chords alone can sound a bit boring and plain, but once you become more advanced with keyboard chords you will be able to add melody, licks, and your own style to a song.

If you are looking for a place to start to learn piano chords, check out my page Piano Chords Made Easy. This page shows you how to build a major chord and how to add the melody to a song using chords.

Once you’re ready to start playing chord piano, check out my page on How To Play Piano Chords. It gives some neat ways of playing chords that most beginners don’t realize.

Basic Piano Chords

There are a lot of basic piano chords that are easy to learn and easy to play. The most common of them is the C Major Chord. These are some of the most common chords used in music, and once learned can help you play a lot of popular songs.

Some of the most basic chords are the Major Chord and Minor Chord. If you can learn these two chords you will open up a new world of piano playing for yourself.

These Piano Chords are three note chords that you can master very quickly. In addition to these chords are a lot of other great chords that you can quickly learn such as Suspended Chords and Diminished Chords.

To learn to play even more chords, check out the Piano Chord Encyclopedia. It has tons of chords that are easy to read and play fast. It is a great resource for the beginning piano player.

Chord Variations

When you learn piano chords you will find that there is a lot of flexibility available when playing a song. When you are reading sheet music you have absolutely no flexibility what so ever. You have to play what’s on the page and that’s it.

This is my favorite thing about learning chord piano. You have so many different variations of chords that it’s almost limitless.

Piano Chord Inversions allow you to take a basic chord and give it a whole new sound. You can play the exact same notes in a different position to give a boring chord a unique sound.

An inversion takes a simple chord and shifts the notes in a different order to make them easier to play and give the chord a different sound.

A simple example of playing keyboard chords using inversion would be playing a C Major Chord starting on an E note instead of the C.

The C Major Chord is played using C, E, and G. Now instead of playing them in this order, play them starting on the E then add the G and C on top.

This is an easy to use trick to take a plain chord and make it sound a little different. It will allow you to add a little bit more uniqueness to a song instead of playing basic root chords.

Piano By Ear

If you really want to learn to play by ear you HAVE! to learn piano chords. Like I said above, chords are the foundation of any song. Once you learn the foundation, you can then apply that to just about any song and start playing songs by ear without even needing a chord chart.

The best thing you can do to start learning to play by ear is learn all the keyboard chords. Once you have mastered each chord in all the keys you can start learning different chord progressions.

A chord progression is pattern that chords generally tend to follow. For example, in the key of C, a C Major Chord is commonly followed by either an F Major Chord or a G Major Chord

Knowing these common chord progressions will help you start learning to play by ear much faster.

As you begin to advance in you musicianship, another great way to help you better play by ear is to be able to recognize chords just by hearing them.

This is a skill that requires a lot of time and practice but is great if you are really wanting to learn to play piano by ear.

Charts and Tools

In the process of learning to play piano you are going to need some tools to help you along the way. On this site I have included a lot of different resources that you can use to help you learn piano chords.

Here are some of the best Free resources such as charts and illustrations available to help you learn keyboard chords fast.

Printable Piano Chord Chart
Piano Chord Diagrams
Piano Chord Chart

Make sure you check out my book The Piano Chord Encyclopedia as well. It is a sure fire way to get you on your way to learning tons of great new chords Today!

Now it’s time for you to get out there and learn piano chords. Take the information here and start learning chord piano. Get started today and learn all those great chords.

There are a lot of chords out there for you tackle, so get your game face on, and start practicing!

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Most people don’t know how to read piano tabs. Piano tabs are a great way to play your favorite songs without having to read sheet sheet music.

Tablature is a system of numbers that represent which notes the musician is to play. It is a lot like sheet music but it uses numbers instead of music notes.

A great thing about tabs is that they are very easily accessible online and for the most part are free.

How to Read Piano Tabs

When you think about tabs most people think about guitar tabs. Piano tabs aren’t as common as guitar tabs but more and more people are starting to use them for the piano.

When learning how to read piano tabs you need to remember that each note on the keyboard is represented by a number. You name each key by which octave it is on. So if it is on the first octave it will be a 1, if it is on the second octave it will be a 2 and so on. The new octaves always start on a C. Look at the image below and see how the keyboard is labeled for tabs.

But how do you know what note to play? There will be numbers at the beginning of the row that will tell you which octave and then a note on that line. So for the tab below which shows the G major scale, it tells you to play a third octave g, a, and b and a forth octave c, d, e F#, and g.

4 I ————–c-d-e-F-g– I
3 I ——g-a-b————– I

Easy enough right? If you haven’t already figured it out the lower case letters represent the natural (white) notes and a capital letter represents a sharp (black) note. Why are there no flats? Because it eliminates the confusion between a “b” for b note or a flat symbol. So every capital letter will represent a sharped note.

Symbol Rundown

Lowercase Letters – represent the natural or white keys

Capital Letters – represent sharped notes. If you don’t know how to make a sharp note then check out this page.

Numbers – represent the octave in which you are supposed to play that note. a4 would mean to play an a on the fourth octave.

“I” – separates measures. If the song is in 4/4 then for every four beats the tabs will use a I to separate that measure

“-” – these represent the amount of time in between notes. If there are a few of these then you leave very little time between the next note. If there are a lot then you leave more time between notes.

R and L – Some tabs will have an R and L at the beginning. This tells you which hand is supposed to play that note. So if there is an R at the beginning then you use the right hand if there is an L then use the left.

R 3 I -g-a-b—I
L 2 I -a—g— I
L 1 I -a—g— I

Other Considerations

If you look at the image above you will see that there are numbers that are stacked on top of each other and numbers that are in a column by themselves. When numbers are stacked it means you are to play these notes all at the same time. When the are in a column by themselves it means you to play that note by itself.

So look out for full chords that are stacked up on top of each other.

Conclusion

This is a basic rundown on how to read piano tabs. Piano tabs are a fun easy way to play the piano. it will help you to quickly play you favorite songs without having to read sheet music.

So take your time and have fun playing the piano without the dread of learning to read music.Go From How To Read Piano Tabs Back to Chord Piano

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