Looking for help/suggestions for playing with a piano player for the first time

[Kendrick M]

Short intro: I picked up my guitar about a year ago after more than 12 years away. I’ve been part of AM for about a year and LOVE it, making slow, steady progress and really enjoying trying to ‘learn guitar’ rather than just ‘memorizing songs’ like I did before. That said, I’m still a long way from feeling like I can improvise, and I only play alone (and for my dogs, and occasionally my wife! LOL)

I recently made friends with a guy and it turns out he’s a piano player and we talked about trying to get together to play some music. I think he is much more knowledgeable than me, but still very much in a learning stage too, and not used to playing with someone else either. He leans more towards jazz, me towards blues, but both grew up with lots of the same music (basic classic rock and singer/song writers like Beatles, James Taylor).

Anyway, I’m trying to figure out the best approach of what we might try to “do our homework on” in order to make some music together. We talked about learning a Beatles song, or just maybe some kind of chord progression in a certain key…???

I feel like it’s a silly question to ask, but honestly, the idea of trying to play guitar along with a piano is VERY different than sitting down alone and working out one of Brian’s arrangements. If anyone has suggestions or resources for me to latch onto to try to get some traction, it would be greatly appreciated!

Also, I’m posting this shortly before leaving to travel for a week, so while I hope to be able to interact with any responses, my online access may be limited. I just wanted to say that so if I’m absent from my own thread, there’s an explanation as to why. 🙂

[sunjamr]

Speaking from personal experience, the hardest part is choosing a song to start with. If I were you, I would choose one of the AM lessons where Brian plays a piano backing track. I don’t remember the lesson numbers (I think there are several), but maybe you could enter “piano” into the Search window and see what comes up. There is a pair of older lessons in particular where there is a jazzy version, then the following lesson is the same theme, but done to a blues version.

Sunjamr Steve

[sunjamr]

Yep, it’s EP052 and EP053. Nice and easy, and you can easily add some improv.

Sunjamr Steve

[San Luis Rey]

Hey Kendrick, Just type piano in the search box on the lesson page. Nine popped up for me.
Mike

Mike

[Mark H]

At this stage in my musical development I’m thinking there are two kinds of music, arrangements and jamming. I recommend you guys should aim to do both.

Work on jamming, but also on figuring out more advanced arrangements, say Tin Pan Alley jazz tunes, that you like. Jamming is less work and more fun.

But to be good at jamming you need to work on arrangements that are more challenging, demanding and, most importantly, educational so you can learn and incorporate those skills into your jamming. The goal should be to create a positive feedback loop. In other words, each feeds into the other.

I recommend Hoagy Carmichael’s stuff for an advanced guitar and piano friendly study. Maybe Rockin’ Chair, Georgia on My Mind, Hong Kong Blues. Maybe Stardust, complete with the original intro! 🙂 There’s so many of them. Hoagy is one of my heroes.

Check out Irving Berlin also; Russian Lullaby, Blue Skies, many more.

Another good one for piano and guitar is Brother Can You Spare a Dime? There are some good arrangements for ‘Brother..’ on YouTube.

Did I mention George Gershwin? Jerome Kern?

[Don D.]

One useful thing is to determine who will manage the basslines. You can take turns, but it’s usually best not to double them unless you have definite parts in mind.

Don D.

[Kendrick M]

Oh man… thank you all so much! I truly appreciate the input and ideas! I’ll have a look at those lessons Steve (and the others via search – thanks Mike [I feel like an idiot for not even thinking to do that! LOL])

Mark – thanks for the suggestions which are all new to me. I’ll have a look at those.

Don – good point on the bass line stuff. We discussed it in a way when he and I were chatting about the idea, but not specifically, so making a point of it before we (try to) sit down together is very helpfu.

Again, thanks to all of you!

Kendrick

[Tim Read]

Hi Kendrick

I have recently started something similar with a friend. We both watched the attached videos which we found helpful. We have begun by picking let it be by the Beatles. It’s a good song a.because you can leave a lot of space in and don’t feel the need to cram lots of either piano and/or guitar into it (which could be a common mistake I think?). Also the chord progression is used in many songs so has lots of mileage! What we’ve found interesting is how easy it is for either instrument to improvise as long as the other keeps to the song (again without overplaying)…good luck it’s fun!

TimR

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