How I arrived at Riffing:
Riffing has been incredibly important to my confidence as a pianist. Early on, I decided that I wanted to chase the skills of playing creatively & freely but felt trapped in the traditional system – I wasn’t great at perfection - I’m a messy pianist it turns out.
Inspired by a few key role models, I gave myself permission to take my own path with the piano, and as soon as I began doing that, my confidence grew.
All I wanted to do was copy the pianists that I liked who were playing modern music: I loved Alicia Keys, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Diana Krall, Ben Folds Five, Coldplay & Vanessa Carlton. [Who were your original inspirations for piano?]
I watched the keyboardists at church who turned lead-sheets into amazing renditions, effortlessly inserting rhythm into each chord.
I began playing in bands – challenging myself to play the sort of rhythm a guitarist would play, or mimic something a drummer might tap out.
I interpreted the songs of my favourite pop, rock and soul pianists.
When you get a PVC - piano/vocal/chord sheet music, you’re given the piano part, but also the chord symbols. I started to see what I had never seen before – the individual notes that were notated on the score, were actually patterns based around the chords!
Without having coined the term ‘Riff Bank’ yet - I was slowly depositing riff, after riff, after riff into my memory– every time that I could isolate a pattern used over the chords.
I began realising that different pianists have their own go-to riffs - they are inclined to specific rhythms and that is what makes them, them. Elton John = very specific patterns that he uses based on blues rhythms. Alicia Keys = very specific pattern based on her classical training & R&B.
I began to feel more confident in ‘free-playing’ situations - more confident than I’d ever felt trying to play perfectly from sheet music. My riffing ability became my new strength and it got me through so many nail-biting situations:
taking ‘requests’ from the congregation at church to play a song from a lead sheet that I’d never played before!
jamming on a called-out chord progression with a live band!
scrambling to make up the remaining 15 minutes of my timeslot as a jazz-bar entertainer!
Riffing has saved my bacon a lot of times - and it’s not just the off-the-cuff stuff– I’ve used riffs as a started point for writing songs at home, I’ve used riffs to make my own unique arrangements of songs I’ve learned.
Whatever name you know it by, whether that’s: riffing, jamming, licks, fills, tricks, chording, comping – these are all essentially the same thing – it’s taking the core of a good musical motif: finding that core, isolating it, and saving it to replicate in the future.
INTRODUCING RIFFING PRO:
If you want to get creative and get ‘off page’ this course is going to light a fire under your piano bench!
Here’s a look at one of the lessons in the course - this is Chord Riff #1 along with the accompanying Guided Practice Track and a demonstration of where you could take it to once you become more confident with riffing…
Want to enrol in ‘Riffing Pro’ now?
This course is delivered in two parts.
The first part is the core riffing skills - Starts from the beginning - no prior skill assumed, no one left behind! It takes you through the fundamentals of riffing & rhythm. Starting with an introduction to chords & inversions, then going into your 8 categories of riffing:
Chord riffs,
Bass riffs,
Melodic riffs,
Rhythmic riffs,
Riff magnets,
Supportive riffs,
Mixed riffs, and
Riff Thief (taking riffs from songs you know & love!)
This is delivered in instalments - each chapter is drip-released so that you aren’t tempted to rush ahead. Drip by drip, we’re going through this course together.
The second part of the course is a done-for-you riff bank, delivered after the full course.
This provides you with a library of riffs in different styles & genres, for you to use just like a pantry. When you need a certain ingredient, you just come to the pantry and select one, & give it a go!
The genres included in the Riff Bank are:
Righteous Riffs (for church),
Rockin’ Riffs,
Blue Riffs,
Jazzy Riffs,
Show-off Riffs, and
Riffing Flair.
WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE SPECIAL?
This course is unlike anything that is on the market right now. There is no other online piano course that comes close to this course: teaching you fundamental riffing skills as well as having a done-for-you riff bank of genre-specific riffs.
But there are a few other things that make this special too:
Screen-free Guided Practice Tracks
Guided walkthroughs of your practise sessions for each individual riff, bridging the gap between lessons & practice time.
The Quad-ucator
This is a teaching method where you get the same thing – the riff– 4 different ways to ensure it really gets into that brain of yours! These four ways are: standard notation, video breakdown, animated keyboard display & Guided Practice Track. CATERING FOR DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES.
Random Riff Challenges
Just to keep you on your toes, every so often there is a SURPRISE riffing challenge designed to get your brain humming and applying these riffs in a fun and creative way.
this course isn’t for everyone!
As much as I’d like to say this course is for everyone, it’s not. Realistically, if you believe that just watching some videos is going to make you a natural pianist then you shouldn’t enrol in this course – I wouldn’t want you to waste your money.
But if you can make the commitment to showing up, not just viewing the video lessons, but doing the exercises, listening to the Guided Practice Tracks and jumping into the Random Riff challenges – trust me that you are the perfect type of pianist for this course and you will see results.
It suits beginners to intermediate to advanced - because those levels are usually based on traditional classical piano–If you have not spent time riffing before, then even if you are advanced in the traditional sense, you haven’t necessarily spent time isolating patterns and applying them in different contexts. So this course can really be suitable for all levels, give it a go!
become the piano riffing pro of your dreams!
Enrolling in this course means you are giving yourself permission to take you own path & begin to play piano freely.
You know that not any old course is going to deliver the motivation you need, and the convenience you need to actually make this happen on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. You’ll get back to that piano bench every time because this course isn’t daunting, in fact it’s:
doable,
achievable,
snackable piano training.
