This excerpt from the Public Television program The Piano Guy is brought to you by the National
Piano Foundation.
(music)
Well lets see if we can learn some really great tips, and maybe tricks if you want to
call them that from our good friend Matt Munhall.
Hi Matt
How you doing Scott? I'm doing very well and I am interested in finding out from you how
to go about turning Blueberry Hill from kind of a just single chord, single melody line,
you know lead sheet interpretation into what we all are used to hearing on the record.
So we want to try and dig in a little bit and see if you can give us some tips on how
to emulate some of those old rock and roll tunes and some of the things that make them
sound like they do and get into all that, so...
And what this tune was a Fats Domino tune, right? Yes, big hit in the 50's, long before
we were born right? Well, close to before when I was born.
Probably long before you were born but....
In that case these are so identifiable I think with the hit record as opposed to some standards
that have been recorded 90 times in 90 different styles you know. Tunes like this are pretty
much what they are...
This was on the jukebox...
Yea, and you gotta kind of imitate it, you don't have to assuming thats why you would
want to be playing this, you know?
So having said that lets dig into this and why don't you, I'll just kind of open the
door for you to step through, how would you start going through this because the chords
in this are really simple, they are like blues tunes. You know there are 2 or 3 chords in
them so no challenge that way when you are reading the lead sheet, the challenge becomes
well how to I interpret this to make it explicable for this style, so off you go, what do we
do on this one......
Well you start out the song in the intro, it's in the key of C, but the intro's on a
C chord and then it goes to your 4 chord is the first chord sort of when it kicks in,
but what happens is the little intro you just take a C and you arpeggiate it,
Ok, don't ask me to spell it, I can just barely say it, arpeggiate it.
So, and then you go to an F chord, that's how I play, I think he plays it like this, but its
an F chord, can you see that and it goes, that's how he does its 2 of these, thats the
funky little part. I don't play that when I sing it as much, OK.
Or you can just do it real simple.
Yea, if you want to do that a couple of more times and do it slowly, lets just get our
fingers out of the way we'll just blindly give this one away. This is a good one, or
blatantly I guess is the right word. So...
One more time, there's a octave...
Ok, F, F,
3, 5
Ok, so you are sliding up off that, Ok.
And then depending on where you need to move the chord you do the same pattern, so it's
really just picking your hand up and starting it over a new root, right?
Yes, and that's what we are going to play it in, we are playing C so you are always using that
flat 3.
Beautiful, so you have exactly the same hand position those 3 different places. Ok, why
don't you play it up tempo or in context there for a second...
The hard part is in switching...
Yea jumping right...
Alright, I'm kind of weird that way but I love bass lines. I like playing bass lines.
They are hard for me I have to admit, I'm so focused on singing and the right hand that
I sometimes just leave the bass.
Well its a struggle from this stand point, like crazy and I think the only way you get
through that from an old drummer stand point is to slow down. And I don't mean kind of
slow down I mean insanely slow down until you get it to a point that you've done it
and its a physical thing. The fun thing about those, once you've charged through that, it
doesn't get progressively easier, its like, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't and then
all at once I can do it, its just the way those things work. The physical hand separation
or hand independence things go, so.
Ok, so that's the left hand line, I know, that I'm thinking through this tune, you know
you are hearing this triplet thing happening or this 12, 8 feel if you want to call it
that, so tell us about that
You are just basically taking the chord and you can play it with whatever voicing you think
sounds proper. It's easier to start out in the root position, and you just play
So, I'll slow that down. Sorry ...
The trick is to kind of get these all to sound even, its hard for me. Usually you are going
to go...Which is fine but really the way Fats Domino plays it is that real light, do you
know what I mean. It goes like this.....
It's almost like he is using it as a rhythm instrument.
yes, and its constant.
Interesting. Thats a good point cause normally, we normally are emphasizing the other way,
thats a good thing you brought that up, because normally we're saying, no, make it groove
it harder on the back beat but in that case he is doing it that way.
Now so when you shift chords you literally just pick the whole machinery up and go to
the next chord huh?
Exactly, you just go to the next voicing you want to play you know. If you want to make
it easy on yourself, if you are starting here, maybe you can play here.
Ok, so by voicings you just mean the chord stacked in some different order, Ok
Yea, the stack of it, so that's a C just flipping it up, you know if you wanted to go to a C
like that, cause you already got one hand to tell to go somewhere so maybe you can keep
one hand in the same place and learn all 3 chords right there for a while.
Sure and what would you do there between the C, the F and the G, lets just give that away,
so you are starting on the F
So I'd go, Ok there's the F
and then I got to C
Ok, stop and just and hold those down for a second, so the C you are just playing with
the C on the top instead of the bottom, Exactly and then the G, I would probably play this,
Then its the 7th and then back to F, so just moving between those
do that for me a couple of times, so we got F, C, G7, back to the F, Ok
That's pretty nice with a lack of movement there which ought to make that easier, Ok
so we will put that together with that bass line and that pretty much is the accompaniment
to the tune.
Pretty much
Ok, now, let's confuse the issue a little bit. That's if you are going to sing along
with it, right.
Sure
Because you are not having to worry about the melody. How do you stick a melody in the
middle of all that if you don't want to sing it and you want to play it?
Well you have to play the bass line,
Wow, I thought you were going to say, "ask a friend to come over" (laugh)
Yea, have Scott come over and do it for you. You have to play the bass, obviously the way
you were playing it before, or maybe a simplified version until you can get that way and then
you are going to be playing by reading the melody straight up.
OK
Don't feel badly I can't do it when I'm not playing chords either. That's fine if you
are going to do that, but the point is, if you are doing it
You gotta play those,
Yea and it will help you keep track of where you are in the melody cause you know where
you are in the chords.
Seriously I'm glad that happens to other people, cause I cannot play a melody by themselves.
We laugh about that on the show all the time. I have to know where I am in the chords.
Now, after you have done that though the minute after the chord gets done, where do you accomplish
get that 12- 8 feel?
When there's no melody, you throw in the triplets,
so you are just really trying to accomplish both things
Well you could play...
That's true...Ok
Something like that,
That's maybe a starting step to get up there, Ok so we are getting that feel.
you know something like that.
Ok, the only reason I was asking that question. I don't think there really is a magic answer
for that but it's always a struggle on these tunes that have like a defined rhythmic thing
with both hands. It's like where in the dickens am I gonna play the melody line with it, and
I think where you just really have to constantly do this tug of war between I've gotta play
that melody line but the minute I have a free moment with my fingers I'm gonna somehow
try to be getting that accomplished underneath there.
You know you have the melody line on top and your playing triplets with your remaining
fingers or something like that, so.
Now form wise this tune just kind of reads right down twice or is there a whole bridge
in it? I can't remember.
There's a bridge.
Ok, lets jump to there then.
So the bridge goes,
Oh right, I'm sorry,
Now do you keep that 12, 8 feel, too? or does it cut out
Cut out, I do cut out, I kind of go to a more, like um just my left hand doing that sort
of stride thing,
Ok
And was that on the recording? I just don't recall
The record doesn't keep doing that whole,
Ok
I kind of think it just actually goes,
Ok, so he just breaks out to know of do it. I think that's a typical thing we talk about
a lot in the shows where we are working through tunes, that's theres going to be some stylistic
sylistic change between the head and the bridge if there is one, or section A, section B, or
whatever you want to call it. The only reason I'm bringing it up is I think where people
are watching the show you're thinking about working through a tune from a lead sheet you
are not going to see that stylistic change on a lead sheet. You need to be thinking through
the "what am I gonna do different from here to here" so that you have some sense of what
it is that's gonna make the tune interesting. Otherwise you just get yourself kind of stuck
in this monotonous thing going all the way through the tune, so.
Yea, alright well listen now you are going to sing this one and not play it solo style
right?
Yea, alright, "Fats", I'll call ya slim. All right? Slim Munhall, let's go ahead and hear
this tune just pay attention to the left hand part, you know even if you are leaving a few
things out, the whole idea is that feel of duh, duba du, that old rock feel and then
the 12, 8 feel playing triplets with your left hand.
Yeap
(music)
Yea, alright Matt thanks!! Thank You. I appreciate it.
This excerpt from the Public Television Program The Piano Guy has been brought to you by the
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