RIFFING PRO, WELCOME!

RuthPower

A big howdy to all our new Riffing Pro students! Here is where you can share your thoughts on the course, first impressions, how you are finding it, any questions you have or progress you want to share.
Start by answering this question: what are you most looking forward to about this course?

RuthPower

MEMBERS! You'll now find 'Riffing Pro' in your 'My Courses' area along with the rest of your Creative Pianist goodies! ENJOY! 🤩

AdrianneG

Hi Ruth and everyone. I'm Adrianne, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada and new to the Piano Picnic, and specifically the Riffing Pro forum. I've been playing piano for about 4 years, self-taught, and mostly play from sheet music. I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished but would like to get away from the restrictions of sheet music and play more freely, and just improvise pretty piano pieces with interesting and melodic progressions and patterns. I was so anxious for the new Riffing Pro course to be released and have already worked through the Intro to Chording and Chord Riffs modules. So far, so good, pretty basic but a good review. I loved the twist of throwing in the Ab chord progression at the end of Chord Riff #10 and practicing beyond the usual C, Am, F, G progression. I'm looking forward to working through the course and getting more comfortable with this kind of playing. Thanks for this Ruth!

alexx88

AdrianneG Hi & Welcome Adrianne! I also really excited about Riffing Pro, & playing freely. Looks like you, Celia, Val & I will be busy this week running our new chord riffs with chord chord.com! 😆

AdrianneG

Oh no...I just went back in to the course to see what to look forward to working on tomorrow but there's nothing beyond Chord Riffs. Bass Riffs titles don't seem to contain anything yet. Are modules being released in stages and if so, when will additional ones be released and will we be notified or do we just check in from time to time? I'm disappointed...I was looking forward to working on some more material. I know, Ruth, you suggest not to rush through the course but so far it's all pretty familiar to me and I was hoping to tackle something a bit more challenging. I guess I'll have to be a little more patient.

RuthPower

Hi @AdrianneG thank you for coming to join the forum! Welcome! It's wonderful to hear some about your journey & experience! What style/artists inspire you the most?
WOW I'm so impressed that you've gotten through that all so quickly! Racing through! Yes - as I spoke about in the launch party yesterday the content is being drip-released in order to get everyone doing the lessons/exercises at the same time and to force a breather between riffs! So the Bass riff chapter will be coming out toward the end of next week. I love that you are so super keen though!

I do advise some breathing time for it to sink in - when you are playing through those riffs - are you adding in bass notes? How are you playing them – just as in the examples, or are you able to quickly transfer to other chords and progressions? There will be a Random Riff challenge coming out soon but here's one for you in the meantime, since you're so keen! Go here and randomly generate a chord progression - and try to play through each of the riffs through a different randomly generated chord progression each time. This should keep you busy for a while! If that's easy, try to not play until you've gone through it in your head first - so that the first time you play that riff over the randomly generated chords, you can hit it perfect straight away!

celiajoy

RuthPower Ruth, I love this suggestion for the random chord generator - I am also so tempted to fly through these modules because they are feeling really easy, but practicing voice leading with the more unusual and different chord progressions (along with the different chord riffs) is SUPER helpful!

the riff library is this great answer to me of wondering what to DO with the chords for a song once you know them

AdrianneG

Thanks Ruth, I'll try this chord generator app with the chord riffs you've taught so far. I DO want to improve at being able to play through chord progressions with the best "voice leading" so this will be good practice for my chord inversions. While working through the first few modules, I DID use left hand patterns to make it a bit more challenging and interesting.

As far as who inspires me, I love Norah Jones and Diana Krall, but don't necessarily aspire to play jazz. I love David Foster, and The Piano Guys. I think mostly I want to be able to play pretty melodic music like Einaudi and Yiruma I guess, with an occasional Billy Joel song (I did learn Piano Man...yeah!) and a little bit of "pop" perhaps.

I'll look forward to the next module!

RuthPower

@AdrianneG oh that's cool! I love Norah Jones and Diana Krall - saw Diana once in Auckland years ago and blew my mind! I still have the program book somewhere. David Foster & Piano Guys... very good. All these have such great pieces to learn but also styles to emulate! Great that you're adding patterns to challenge yourself - I'm certain the later modules will be more challenging for you - I always start very simply in my courses as they need to 'catch all' levels and not leave anyone behind!

vkisamore

So far the course is quite easy. The practice tracks are great. I like syncopated riffs the best, but how do you play them with something of a different rhythm in the other hand? Looking forward to starting the bass riffs.

RuthPower

vkisamore Hi Val - once you get into the bass riffs you can start mixing them with the chord riffs - that's when it starts to get tricky! So, enjoy the simplicity for now 😏

alexx88

I just started working on my Riffing Pro modules today. I LOVE the new format! The videos followed by the narrated practice tracks are really great!

So far, pretty easy. Inversions & voice leading chords aren't an issue for me at all. I've been watching all the videos, & going through all the exercises in the practice tracks, to keep within the course progression. The counting & the metronome is a great refesher, especially with my goal to play with other people. I rarely play entire songs from sheet music, & I often put my own spin on songs because I'm playing solo.

I was bummed that I didn't have time to get to the Bass Riff module today, & just saw that it isn't released yet 😃 I'm going to try the random chord progression generator & go through the exercises again. I really like that idea. Hopefully I have enough time this week to go through a bunch of those before the Bass Riffs are released!

I got as far as Riff #9 of 10. I was getting hung up on the last part of the practice track when it switched to the key of G. For some reason the combination of the counting, drums & pad, was tripping me up. If I rewound to where it was just the metronome & no counting in the key of "C" & played the "G" progression I was fine. As soon as the verbal counting, drums & strings came in, I got off beat. Maybe it was because I did the whole thing today, or maybe it was because it was after midnight. 🤪 I'll give it a whirl again tomorrow. Then I need to get back to working on The Police/Sting exercise! Been dragging my feet on that.

vkisamore

Hey Alexx, you gave me a good idea. I will use the random chord generator to try some of these riffs again. When the bass riffs open up, let me know which ones you've done and I'll try to keep pace with you so we can chat about what was easy and what was difficult. Sounds like you are a little ahead of me in terms of playing by ear and improvising, so I hope you'll have some great advice 🙂 Keep playing it like you mean it!!

alexx88

vkisamore Val, using the Random Chord Generator to re-do the chord riffs was Ruth's idea. I'm going to work on that today. I like your idea about chatting about our progress. I think that will help us feel like we're not out here on our own as we try to do this. Especially if we're having trouble with something & feeling lost. I'm looking forward to the bass riffs because I feel like I'm in a rut doing the same old stuff over & over. I definitely need more interesting bass line rhythms & patterns.

LOL,thanks for the vote of confidence in my skills! I'm definitely a work in progress. Learning & pushing the envelope. We all have struggle areas & confidence areas, so I think this forum is good. We can learn off each other. Even if it's a "glad I'm not the only one" moment, to keep us going through the frustrating times!

RuthPower Mixing bass riffs & chord riffs! I hadn't even thought of that concept in that way, but I guess that IS what we do & strive for. Seeing it written like that though is 😵😱

RuthPower

@alexx88 @celiajoy @vkisamore you guys are fabulous! Yes - random chord generator is a really great way to challenge yourself flipping through chords & keys with those rhythms. As Val mentioned, once Bass Riffs comes out you can start to play those together, which will mean lots of different combos.
Voice-lead wherever possible too - because the more you do it the easier it will flow - which means one less thing to think about while you're challenging yourself with the rhythms!
Also the great thing about that website - chordchord.com is it basically makes a backing track for you when you select the drums or pads, so nice and easy to play along - especially @alexx88 who wants to play with others!!! Although, I do think we should get you guys all collaborating on a track together! Ideas for future Random Riff Challenges!!!! 😱

alexx88

Hey everyone! Been thinking of this as I'm going through the chord riff modules. I can do them all no problem. Next step is to try them with the random chord generator. Not anticipating any concerns there. In fact I'm hoping it will throw in some less used keys to help with chord progression familiarity.

I can't stop thinking though, how am I going to remember these riffs for the future. It's easy while looking at the cheatsheet, or listening to the video/practice track.

Where & how to implement them in a song that's already written? This keeps invading my brain. I can see if I was composing, then I could use it as a reference/guide to help.

I know I can add stuff when there are breaks in the lyrics & for instrumental/solo sections. Is that just all there is to it?

I'm also thinking that I need to always be thinking of patterns & what can work where, so I don't get into future ruts of same ol' same ol', but with "new" tricks lol

RuthPower

alexx88 Hi Alexx! Great to hear you're enjoying it so far! In terms of remembering... here are my thoughts:
You're not expected to memorise every single one - though doing all the various exercises and challenges as the course goes on is going to help put it into your memory - you're never going to be given a pop-quiz of "Please name all 60 Riffs and play from start to finish"..😱
BUT the more these rhythms sink in and you try to purposefully include them when you are in a situation for riffing - (which is anything where you want to play creatively) the more those rhythms will start to become second nature and embedded in your natural 'riff-ertoire'.
So even though you might not remember all 60, all the time - you'll find that a few of them that make an impression on you, or that you liked the most, will surface when you need a riff.
To begin with, it is about including them in your creative playing purposefully - so when you are playing from a leadsheet - you might see an opportunity to use a bass riff rather than the same old bass notes that you're used to - or likewise with a chord riff... as you go on through the course, you might find that using a melodic or supportive riff is perfect for accompanying singing, or creating a improvised solo - each new section in the course has a slightly different purpose and that is explained as you go through each module!

vkisamore

Hi Adrianne, Celia, and Alexx, I take back saying that the first bit of riffing is easy peasy now that I am trying to do both chord progressions 1 6 4 5 and 1 5 4 1 in every key and and every inversion using the syncopated rhythms without having bumpy patches when I move to new inversions. This is enough of a challenge to keep me going for awhile, but I think some muscle memory may kick in soon 🙂 I also invented my own 4/4 riffing rhythm which is and eighth, a quarter, 2 eighths, a quarter and lastly an eighth note. Give it a try !

alexx88

RuthPower This makes sense. I kind of figured there would be some that I would really like & would remember. I think I’ll try to come up with a hard copy Riff Folder. I’ll put the cheat sheet in there, & other stuff I come up with or across. This way every now & then I’ll be able to look through it till I really get used to throwing them in here & there, & start remembering them.