The Total Blues Keyboardist: Keyboard/Piano Book & CD

This book treats blues keyboard as a living, learnable craft rather than a collection of licks to memorize. Gleason organizes the material by progression type and blues regional style, which means students understand the framework before filling in the details. The included CD lets you hear exactly how each technique sounds in context, making the bridge between theory and playing immediate and real.

The blues keyboard sound is earthy and expressive, built on hypnotic rhythms and rich chord voicings that sit somewhere between classical harmony and pure feel. Learning from this book, you'll discover why a simple left-hand pattern can drive an entire song, and how the right harmonic choice at the right moment makes people move.

Piano and keyboard players from beginner through advanced who want to understand blues deeply rather than just copy what they hear. Whether you're learning solo repertoire, accompanying a singer or instrumentalist, or joining an ensemble, this book gives you the theory and practical tools to play with authority in any blues setting.

• Study one blues style at a time rather than jumping across Delta, Chicago, and soul blues in the same practice session. Let your ear and fingers absorb the rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary of each tradition before moving forward.
• Play along with the CD examples at slower speeds first, then gradually increase tempo as your muscle memory and improvisational reflexes catch up.
• Focus on mastering the 12-bar progression variations before tackling 8-bar or 16-bar forms; the 12-bar is the foundation that makes everything else click into place.
• Record yourself playing turnarounds and intros, then listen back to hear how cleanly you execute the transitions between sections. Clean turnarounds make the difference between sounding amateurish and professional.

Assign sections to students preparing for jazz or blues ensemble auditions, or use it as a supplementary resource in a general music theory class when studying the blues as a musical tradition. The progressions and improvisation framework also work well for students interested in songwriting or composition in popular styles.

• Blues harmonic progressions (8-bar, 12-bar, and 16-bar forms)
• Improvisation over blues changes in multiple styles
• Left-hand rhythm patterns and ostinatos characteristic of blues keyboard
• Comping and accompanying skills for ensemble playing
• Regional blues keyboard styles (Delta, New Orleans, Chicago, Memphis, gospel, soul, funk)
• Classic blues intros, endings, and turnarounds
• Reading and playing with a rhythm section