Is this a joke site or a site for musicians who are serious about playing music? Let's see, I took the time to write about my efforts to learn to play music like Jerry Lee. If you're wondering, I'm no rank beginner. And I didn't throw a posting up here just to practice my posting skills. I've been wanting to "study" his licks for a while now! So I'm real excited about getting 21 replies to my message. Until I reviewed them! Respondees talking about pizzieria's, some telling me to pound on the piano, a comment about a 13 year old cousin, a pact with the devil, use your foot on the keyboard, kick the bench around, warnings against playing Jerry Lee on an average keyboard, advertisement's for Papa John's, Domino's and Pizza Hut, pizza perks, and finally a job description about someone's position at a "well-known pizza chain."

Somehow I can't see the correlation between any of the above and learning to play Jerry Lee Lewis riffs. Can you? If you need to talk personal talk about your lives and trade barbs, please do it on someone else's posting. I'd be lucky now if anyone read my ad and realized I was sincere about my request and I'm not on this board to talk about pizza.

But......thank you to those who posted the following....
http://www.homespuntapes.com/catagory/default.asp?catID=21&ctype=i
http://www.jerryleelewis.com/

Isn't that a form of what they call "stride piano"?
I would do an internet search on "stride" piano all the major publishers have books about it some have videos also. (it's NOT stride piano, but that was a good guess)

Go to www.musicrobot.com and download Jerry Lee's "Great Balls of Fire." Load that into your sequencer and print out the piano channel. The midi is pretty close and the print out should give you some indication of what's happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5C7OGNCC3g

That kind of pedantry will garner you NO responses in the future if you are not careful...

This is a public forum, NOT some kind of answering service for someone too lazy to perform their own Google searches. If we meander off topic after having posted some useful information, that is our right. If you want researchers to go out and do what you are too lazy to do yourself, go out and hire them...

Oh, and BTW, you are welcome for the boogie-woogie reference, unacknowledged though it was...

Hi Mark,

Just take it with a grain of salt. By the way, Homespuntapes should have what you're looking for in one of their piano courses. I'd suggest David Cohen Teaches Rock 'n' Roll Piano
A Hands-on Beginner's Course in Traditional Rock Styles and Learning Rock n Roll Piano
Taught By Bob Hoban (Learn the rollicking '50s and '60s rock and roll piano styles made popular by Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino!)

Good luck!

Taike

Diki.....

I'd rather get NO responses than ones referring to pizza. Wouldn't you? This site was meant for musicians to relay musician-type messages to each other, and I'm assuming you're a professional musician. Yes, it's a "public forum"....but a public forum for music topics, or didn't you notice that? I would suggest those who want to clog up the boards with personal conversation start their own topics and don't interfere with us players who are focused on music issues.

As for your comment:

"NOT some kind of answering service for someone too lazy to perform their own Google searches. If we meander off topic after having posted some useful information, that is our right. If you want researchers to go out and do what you are too lazy to do yourself, go out and hire them..."

If you want to "meander off topic," that is your choice but it is NOT your right! And it is especially NOT your right to intrude on someone else's posting.

"perform their own Google searches?" I've been Google-ing Jerry Lee Lewis for months now. I've been telephoning music stores, distributors and publishing companies. I've been asking other musicians. I've been making inquiries wherever I could. I've been working off the few decent MIDI files I could find. Do you think I just upped and decided to let you members do my leg work? Learn the facts before you start making "lazy" comments.

Taike....I suppose if it wasn't so important (and frustrating) to me, I would have taken it "with a grain of salt." What happened here was....I've been trying to find Jerry Lee transcriptions for a few years now as I want to incorporate it in my performances. I finally read on a web site last week that for some odd reason, his music does NOT get posted anywhere. Only lead sheets. His actual playing is not available in any way shape or form.....probably because it's almost impossible to transcribe coherently what he does. With that in mind, I posted here as one of my few options left. I was over the moon when I first saw so many replies. You know the rest.

Anyhow, thanks for the new leads. I did a Google on those books and found them on Amazon. From there I found this book by Johnnie Johnson who did the fine runs in the Chuck Berry hits. There's a "samples" download also.

I'm a fine keyboard player and have no problem with the blues, but when it comes to Jerry Lee, I just can't seem to grasp what that man is doing! Back to the JLL MIDI files!

I've just got a feeling that Jerry Lee Lewis' playing style is one of those that falls into the category of "you either got it or you ain't", if you get my drift. That's not terribly helpful, I know, but I think that's where it's at with that style. And even if it were written note for note, there's so much inherent 'feel', 'fire', 'soul', 'balls', call it what you will, in the playing, anyone would be hard pressed to emulate it with any believeability.

I'm with the "pinch of salt" crowd on this one.

I'm also with the "either you can do it or you can't" crowd as well.

In theory transcriptions can capture the music but I don't usually find them very accurate. They will not capture the performance and its the way Jerry Lee Lewis does it that makes it him. I'd watch as many live videos as possible and pick up the tricks that way.

I don't know why this wasn't my first response but I agree with the poster that says download or buy a midi file of a JLL song like GBOF. Then you can use almost any sequencer to either print or view on screen the transcription of what the player is playing. Pick a part you want from any song and view it, slow it down, isolate it, transpose it, anything you want. I have done this several times myself.

The only thing is the part maybe split over several tracks, but I just keep muting tracks until the only parts I hear are what I want to learn.

I hope my stride piano comment didn't lead you off track I was thinking boogie woogie and I even used some basic ragtime exercises for the repetitive left hand bass parts. Of course as you know he was also influenced by Western swing, boogie-woogie, uptempo R&B and Delta blues, according to his page at the hall of fame .

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 07-04-2007).]

Just buy every JLL CD you can get your hands on, and listen to NOTHING else for about a month. Day and night, all Jerry Lee, all the time!

If you don't 'get it' by then, you never will... If you have to rely on transcriptions as a substitute for listening and working things out yourself, this one may be beyond you.

Steep yourself in the source, and what he does should come naturally.

Mark - had you posted this quote first, I think the responses would have been more on-topic and to your liking.

One thing a new member needs to learn about the SZ is that this is a very knowledgeable but, at times, irreverent group. Many of us like to CHAT here in addition to discussing music issues. Though I live in Michigan I can communicate with "friends" I've made here from Pennsylvania, California, Florida and around the world.

I'm afraid you walked into the ZONE not knowing just what to expect. Lighten up, and I'm sure your future posts will go well. One last thought - some of those useless posts you refer to are actually great references to Jerry and his style. AND, I also agree that watching and listening to JLL music is the best way to imitate it. Now if you're not a visual or auditory learner, that could be a problem.

Peace on the SZ,
Cass

ps - glad you liked my musicrobot reference.

[This message has been edited by cassp (edited 07-04-2007).]