September 5, 2026
About the Author: Reuben
Blues piano, especially solo blues, often involves turning your two hands into an entire band. This task can be daunting, as it involves assigning a lot of responsibility to your left hand, both in rhythmic and harmonic terms.
Having a selection of riffs fluently learned in your left hand is essential in order to support the melodies your right hand will be playing.
The good news is that, once you have a riff fluently in your left hand, you can then focus almost entirely on the right hand while the left hand provides the perfect engine to your tune.
Here are five riffs that can provide this ideal foundation.
Riff 1: 5-6 Shuffle
This riff is one of the backbone riffs for blues as well as boogie-woogie and rock ‘n’ roll piano.
It requires almost no hand movement, is easy to reset if you trip up, and can be used at a wide variety of tempos and styles.
Start this one around 50bpm, and aim to get a lazy swing feel to it, delaying every off-beat note.
Make sure the bottom note is the root of the chord you are playing, so for the above example you would be playing on a C7 or C major chord.
You can also put this riff down an octave for a more gritty sound.
This riff works well on slow blues tunes such as Stormy Monday.
Riff 2: New Orleans Basic
Anyone playing blues piano should take some time to absorb elements of New Orleans blues players such as Dr John and Professor Longhair.
Their style is more colourful and involves a lot of intricate moving parts, so it is good to start simple and add complexity to your riffs later.
This riff again requires little to no movement, and will benefit from being played with a laid-back feel.
This riff has two variants above; one simple, the other with a little extra movement involved.
Both will work for playing great New Orleans tunes such as Frankie & Johnny.
Riff 3: Barrelhouse Starter
This riff rolls along with more momentum than the previous examples, making use of a driving quaver rhythm.
This is a good workout for your left hand, requiring decent stamina, but not stretching your technique too much in the process.
I’ve taken this riff from the Pinetop Boogie, where it is delivered with a light swing, but you can also play this one straight with equal power!
Riff 4: Fats Domino
The loping, swinging style of Fats Domino is worth emulating when playing blues piano.
At medium to low tempos, a laid-back feel is essential, and this riff is a good exercise of this.
This riff works well over tunes such as Blueberry Hill.
The lack of a 7th in the riff makes it more stable than other riffs, and slightly less bluesy.
Riff 5: The Tricky One
This riff is for those who find all the other riffs in this list easy.
It requires left hand fluency and stamina, and can be difficult to solo on top of until you are able to play it completely care-free.
I first heard this riff played by Oscar Peterson in his Blues Etude, but that is eye-wateringly fast, and anyone able to play it at that speed and improvise won’t need to be reading this!
Once you have got this riff up to a moderate speed with full fluency, ease the right hand in by playing clear chords and licks on repeat, so you get used to how the left hand riff sits in context.
As with all of the riffs above, you can opt to use this just for a couple of hard-hitting choruses and then switch to something more sustainable.
All of these riffs are serviceable in almost every key, and will suit a multitude of tempos and chord sequences.
For further demonstration of the styles described here, look up “Dr John Teaches New Orleans Piano”, which is a brilliant demonstration of various styles and techniques by one of the masters of the genre!
If you would like to develop your blues piano technique with expert guidance, explore our blues piano lessons at the London Piano Institute and build greater confidence, control and musical freedom at the keyboard.
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