Product Description

This best selling book, 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs by Andrew Gordon is an exhaustive guide to some of the best musical phrases that make up blues piano/keyboard playing. There are five sections broken down into:

* Basic Blues riffs

* R&B influenced Blues riffs

* Boogie Woogie

* Rock influenced Blues riffs

* Gospel influenced Blues riffs The 12 bar Blues progression and the Blues scale are explained. There are two completed songs at the back of the book that shows how to combine many of the riffs to form a song. Many people have commented that this is the best Blues keyboard product that they have ever used. A must for all levels of keyboardists that want to study the blues. All 100 "riffs" are recorded with the piano right hand on the right channel and the piano left hand on the left channel along with a drum track. Learn how your favorite Blues keyboardists play including Dr. John, Leon Russell, Chuck Leavell, Jimmy Yancey, Meade Lux Lewis, Otis Spann, Nicky Hopkins and many more!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98525 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 69 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent Blues Riff Book
It has been somewhat difficult for the intermediate/advanced piano player to find a book of riffs and melodic ideas to add to their blues repetoire. This book, "100 Ultimate Riffs" is just what you're looking for..and it delivers what it's name implies. "100 Ultimate Riffs" provides a good mixture of chords and individual note runs that you would expect from such a book. It also provides riffs in different keys, wih a variety of rhythms.

NOTE: The riffs may be too daunting for the beginner, but anyone from early intermediate onwards will find useful and fun blues riffs in this book.

This is not a "how to" book, nor is it a compliation of blues "standards". This book does not provide theory or concept on progressions, turnarounds, etc....it is what it's name implies, a riffs book.

Has tons of great sounding blues riffs!
There are an absurd amount of Blues Piano books out there, most of which suck, and don't actually teach you how to play, or teach you only by sight reading where your hands and ears don't know the blues sound well enough. There are three exceptions though, and the three wonderful blues piano books that should be mandatory for anyone looking to learn and improve, be they beginner or advanced intermediate, are:

1. Blues Piano -- Mark Harrison
2. Improvising Blues -- Tim Richards
3. 100 Ultimate Blues Riffs for Piano/Keyboards -- Andrew Gordon.

The first two out of the above mentioned three really take the time to give you a step by step method for understanding all of the blues genre, and how to develop both hands playing it, the scales, chordal theory, etc, along with dozens of great riffs. This book doesn't do that; it is, like other people have mentioned, a strict runs/licks book. However, with the examples chosen, you couldn't ask for more.

The riffs in this book are excellent; a lot of books on the blues, and people playing the blues, use some really cheesy riffs that sound very uncreative, uninspiring, and far too white. This book really hammers in tons of great sounding, truly bluesy riffs. It covers everything from funk, gospel, jazz, boogie woogie, n. orleans, and rock n' roll type of blues, and the way he transcribes the licks note for note really allows the player (with lots of practice!) to get a nice Ray Charles sound...aka: sounding natural, musical, and unforced.

I also like the fact that they aren't all in one key; I find that if a book uses only C or G then that leaves the door open to not practicing in other keys. This book forces you to learn different riffs in all kinds of different keys, and is one of the biggest reasons I was finally able to overcome my hesitancy with being able to transpose very common licks and runs into some of the harder keys to play that have more sharps/flats.

This book is great for both beginners through advanced intermediate...an invaluable resource to finally learn the riffs we've all heard thousands of times yet can't figure out ourselves. (The CD that comes with the book is great...played nice and slowly so you don't feel rushed, you can very clearly hear what's being played, and they are note for note transcriptions of the sheet music examples in the book).

Not about the blues
I am puzzled by the positive reviews of this book. As a blues player and teacher I am always searching for new artists and books about the blues and this book does not deliver. The "riffs" are played on a cheezy keyboard - not a real piano and are sequenced and quantized rendering them lifeless and useless. Playing these "riffs" will make you a better piano player, but will not help you learn the blues. Real blues are about groove and soul and feel not just playing a sequence of "riffs" - the vast majority of which would never be played by a real bluesman. Do not waste your money.