🎹 Why Can They Boogie But You Can’t?

🎹 Boogie Woogie Weekly

Issue: Why Can They Boogie But You Can’t?
(And how to fix it with the Hand of God Technique (HOG)—without a piano)

👀 Read Time: ~7–10 Minutes

🧠 Skill Level: Beginner-Friendly
📺 Includes: 2 HOG drills, YouTube links, practice tips, and a challenge.

👋 Let’s Get Honest...

You ever sit down at your piano…
Load up a boogie tutorial…
Start strong…

…but then your left hand completely betrays you?

It gets stiff.
You lose the rhythm.
It trips over itself like it’s drunk at a family barbecue.

And you think:

You’re not broken. You’re just missing one thing 👇

🖐️ Enter: The Hand of God Technique

This isn’t a gimmick. This is the system I created after working with dozens of frustrated students (and being one myself).

The Hand of God (HOG) is a step-by-step rewiring method that fixes all of these issues and gives you total command of your left hand—without confusion, burnout, or overwhelm.

It’s based on two strange but powerful ideas:

🔑 1. You don’t need a piano to practice.

You can train your hands and fingers on your kitchen table.

🔑 2. You should move your right hand before you ever play with it.

That’s how you build true independence.
No “practice paralysis.” Just layer-by-layer growth that clicks.

Let’s break it down 👇

🧠 The Big Lie: “It Looks So Complicated!”

You’ve seen the pros blaze through something like Boogie Woogie Stomp.
You think: “That’s gotta take 10 years to learn.”

Nope.

Here’s the truth:

That’s the Complexity Myth in action—thinking something is complex just because it looks complex.

What those players are doing is stacking a few simple skills—in the right order.

And that’s where the Mastery Method comes in (more on that next week).

But the very first step?
Master your left-hand bassline—the groove engine of boogie.
And that’s exactly what the Hand of God is for.

🧪 Fix Your Boogie Brain with The Hand of God Technique

The goal of HOG is simple:

✅ Get your left hand to play on autopilot
✅ Build hand and finger technique before sound
✅ Layer new movement complexity step-by-step

Today, I’ll give you the first 2 HOG drills.

They only take 3-5 minutes a day, but they’re a game changer.

🖐️ Fingers on Your Hands Explained

Before we jump into the Hand of God drills, let’s get one thing straight—
how fingers are numbered in piano playing.

This is crucial for following fingerings in basslines and right-hand licks.

Each finger on each hand is assigned a number, and it’s the same for both hands:

🎹 1 = Thumb
🎹 2 = Index Finger
🎹 3 = Middle Finger
🎹 4 = Ring Finger
🎹 5 = Pinky

So when you see something like “5–3–1” in a bass pattern, that’s
Pinky → Middle → Thumb.

You’ll see these numbers throughout my exercises and drills—especially in left-hand boogie patterns—so now you’ll know exactly which fingers to use.

Visual reference 👇
(Use this as a mental image or print it out and tape it above your keys)

🔁 Drill 1: The Ghost Groove

Train your groove without a piano.

• Sit at a table or desk.

• Tap out this pattern with your left hand only:
  C5 – C5 – E3 – C5 – G1 – C5 – A1 – G2
  ^{(the numbers after the keys are the fingers to use. As we’ll be doing this without a piano, you’ll basically only need the fingering to do this on your desk)}

• Loop it steady.

• Close your eyes sometimes for an extra challenge.

• Do it for 3 minutes.

🎧 Try this backing track while tapping:
🔗 Boogie Practice Timer – 70 BPM

Why it works:
You’re training your internal timing without pressure or sound distractions.

How to practice it:
The cool thing about this is that you can do this in just a few minutes a day, wherever you are.

On the train? Do it.
Waiting for your pasta to cook? Do it.
Watching a movie with your loved one? Do it.

This is the key to becoming independent - you’re training to play the bassline pattern without even thinking about it.

In the beginning it will challenge you (and that’s good!) but over time you will be able to do it even while having a conversation with someone else…

✋ Drill 2: The Dusty Piano Drill

Train coordination without playing both hands. (but still using both hands)

• Sit at your keyboard or desk.

• Left hand: play the same groove pattern as above.

• Right hand: do anything. but. play:

  • Pretend to wipe dust off the keys

  • Wiggle fingers in the air

  • Stretch, point, wave

  • Snap or tap lightly

  • Read a book

  • Watch tv

Goal: Train your left to keep grooving while your right moves independently.

Why it works:
This drill tricks your brain into accepting hand separation before you confuse it with sound.

It’s important to do it this way because the tricky part about hand independence for example is that people try to add too much at once.

Like, playing a bassline on the piano, while trying to play a riff, while ALSO focusing on the 12 bar blues, rhythm, backbeat, etc.

Thinking that because yes, these are all important, you have to all do them at the same time…

Is wrong.

You make each thing independent first before combining.

These are all steps that have to be added step-by-step so that you don’t overwhelm your brain.

For example, when I sing while playing, it is hard to play insane solos while singing.

Because that would just be too much at once. So I remove the solos while singing and remove the singing while soloing.

You're building coordination before complexity.

Resource:
If you can’t play this bass line pattern yet and want me to guide you through it step-by-step, here’s my full YouTube lesson on it taking you from 0 to 100 with this bassline.

🧠 What You’re Actually Training

This is what makes the Hand of God different.

We’re not just “repeating patterns.”

We’re building:
🔄 Internal rhythm
🧘 Left-hand automation
🧠 Brain-to-finger pathways
🧩 Multi-tasking flow

So when it is time to add the right hand?
It just fits—like it was always meant to be there.

🧪 Reader Challenge: The “Invisible Groove Week”

Here’s your mission this week:

1. Do the Ghost Groove daily, multiple times a day, whenever you remember.
   (because let’s be honest, because you can do this drill wherever you are, you’ll definitely have the time to do this. You just need to remember)

2. Do the Dusty Piano Drill at least once a day for 5 minutes.

Track your progress in a notebook.
Rate how “natural” the groove feels each day on a scale of 1–10.

By day 7, your left hand will surprise you.

💬 Real Talk

The first time I tried this—no piano, just tapping—I thought it was dumb.

Until Day 7.

That’s when I sat down to actually play and realized my left hand was keeping time without me even thinking.

My right hand started dancing around a lot more naturally.

And that’s when I knew this wasn’t just a trick—it was a system.

I’m not saying you do this for 7 days and become a boogie woogie god. You’d need all of the exercises for that in the right order.

But I am saying that this will save you potentially months of time and frustrating practice if you do it right.

🧭 Coming Next Week...

🎹 The Boogie Blueprint: The perfect Boogie Woogie Piano learning method.
We’ll go deep into the Mastery Method, and show you how to:

• Enter the “Flow Channel”

• Stack skills the smart way

• Avoid burnout or confusion

• Learn boogie woogie fast, fun, and simple.

❤️ If This Helped You...

✅ Forward it to a friend
✅ Share it on social and tag me @jonahschwickert
✅ Or just reply and say hi—I read every message.

Let’s build the best boogie piano community on the planet.

Stay groovy,
✍️ Jonah
Owner, learnboogiewoogie.com

PS: Want More?

I’m building a video masterclass on the full HOG system.

🎁 If you want first access to the video walk-throughs, reply with:
“GIVE ME THE HOG”
I'll send it to the waitlist first (with bonus training not in this email).