BLUES AND BOOGIE PIANO STYLES: Teach Yourself How to Play Blues & Boogie Piano

The outline used as the basis of most of improvisations follows a specific musical form known as "theme and variations." This is appropriate for a vocal art such as the blues wherein the vocalist repeats a basic chantlike melody many times, using a new set of words for each repetition. In instrumental music such as solo blues piano, lacking a text to provide new impetus from chorus to chorus, it is up to the pianist to create something captivating enough to maintain interest. To this end the blues pianist generally develops a collection of techniques which are featured one by one during each song. The secret of blues and jazz piano improvisation is that a performer acquires a body of right hand techniques which are available to be employed for each and every piece performed, with the left hand providing changes in bass patterns, tempos and keys from song to song. Since the rule is, a change of bass pattern
equals a change in style, it is fascinating to observe how completely fresh a particular tune will sound when the left hand introduces
new bass patterns from piece to piece while the right hand retains the same music. This impression of freshness is especially enhanced when each piece is, played in a new key at a different tempo.
To summarize, beca se the right hand techniques remain constant and since a great number of blues songs have their origins in just a handful of prototypical blues songs (1) it could almost be said that the blues artist knows only one blues piece (so to speak) which is played at fast, medium and slow tempos, in various keys over many kinds of bass patterns.