Just a closer walk with thee – New Orleans Piano Style

I’m really happy that a lot of people have watched my previously uploaded “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.” Also, I’m excited to have received requests for sheet music. The sheet music, transcribed from my performance, is available for download from this blog.

The sheet music is written in even eighth notes, but I actually play it with a slight bounce. The subtlety and excellence of New Orleans musicians’ bounce is truly amazing. It’s better to play with just a slight bounce, not too extreme. In New Orleans-style piano playing, there are occasions where the rhythm alternates between a bouncing feel and an even tempo within the same song, which adds a nice spice to the music.

This time, I uploaded two chord charts. One is a chord chart following this arrangement. The other is a basic chord chart.

The progression of this song is generally orthodox, but I think everyone loves the Eb-G7 (I-III7) progression in bars 9 and 10. Dr. John has many cool phrases using this progression. In this arrangement, I haven’t changed the chords much, but I slightly altered the later chords to make it easier to play typical phrases often used by Dr. John.

Feel free to change difficult phrases in your own way when performing. Doing so will surely bring out your personality and make for a better performance.

If you find a mistake in the sheet music, it would be helpful if you could let me know in the YouTube comments.