Turnarounds and Endings
Turnarounds and endings are other important blues elements. If you wish to play idiomatically, you will need to add the following figures to your musical toolbox. Like many other styles, the blues has its share of clichés and formulas. It is important to develop your own distinctive voice on the piano. However, you must also play some of the standard moves.
The turnarounds and endings in this book are common. They are used by virtually all blues musicians regardless of whether they come from St. Louis, Sacramento, Austin, Biloxi, or anywhere else on the globe. Mind you, they might not be played exactly note-for-note the same.
A turnaround occurs at the end of a blues chorus. It's a musical signpost that tells the listener, “Okay, we're coming up to the end of a chorus and a new one is about to start.” In boogie-woogie, choruses tend to blend into each other without much fanfare. This is because the left hand is chugging away on loop. However, in more lyrical styles of blues, you will often hear pianists use turnarounds to signal the coming of a new chorus. Many turnarounds contain a walking bass line, which moves from the I chord to the V chord. The bass line in FIGURE 10-14 shows this.
FIGURE 10-14: Turnaround Bass Line
Yet, to understand a full turnaround, you'll need to back up to the last phrase of the blues. In FIGURE 10-15, a typical bass pattern outlines beginning on measure nine. In this case, the bass line is written using octaves.
FIGURE 10-15: Four-Bar Turnaround Bass Line
FIGURE 10-16 features a full turnaround using both hands. Notice that the third measure (measure eleven in a blues chorus) utilizes the bass line from
The final turnaround uses a ii–V–I chord progression. In Chapter 4, you learned about scale degrees. In the key of C major, a ii chord is minor (D–F–A), a V chord is major (G–B–D), and a I chord is major (C–E–G). This is the harmonic backbone of FIGURE 10-17.
Endings are pretty self-explanatory. They are closing licks and/or chord progressions that signal a song's conclusion. There are many well known endings, and you should learn how to play as many of these as possible.
FIGURE 10-16: Four-Bar Turnaround with Both Hands
FIGURE 10-17: ii-V-I Turnaround
FIGURE 10-18: Blues Endings
Why play stock endings? The blues is built on improvisation, groove, feeling, soul, personal expression, and individualism. However, there are parameters or boundaries. Within those parameters are clichés that everyone uses. You can stretch or deconstruct these musical borders, or simply reinterpret them altogether, but you can't just avoid them. Musical borders are part of the rule book for whatever style of music you are playing. The goal is to strike a balance between originality and convention.
When it comes to endings, the blues almost always favors the clichés. Clever or eccentric endings are rarely used. Soloists may travel outside the usual harmonic boundaries during the body of a song, but the song's ending always brings the music back home to its humble roots.
FIGURE 10-18 features seven stock endings for a major blues. Notice how some of them use the turnaround bass line from
