I haven't looked at BH's system, but lead sheets and comping sounds like jazz. There's plenty of other useful information in the book (and on the web), but 12 bar blues is really the foundation that you need to build first. You want to get to the point where you can more or less forget what your left hand is doing and concentrate on doing something interesting in the right. The goal is to be able to figure out what to do for yourself, on the fly (not much help when you want someone to tell you exactly what to do, I know!) One important thing to work towards is complete independence of your hands. Start with chords, maybe add in some arpeggios, blues scale runs, standard blues riffs, and so on.
What you're really learning is how to improvise on the piano. Then start adding in the right hand (p58).
Starting on page 53 there are some examples of left hand patterns, and googling for something like 'blues left hand patterns' or 'boogie woogie left hand patterns' will give you plenty more. I'd work through the 12 bar blues in a few common keys (e.g. So I guess I'm looking for practice scenarios as well as any recommendations on song books that would be good for a beginner who wants to learn a lot of keys and is still struggling with chords and music theory. I'm afraid my classical training has turned me into a robot that needs someone telling me exactly what to do. It seems like his only recommendation is to practice a lot and in different keys.but what I am actually supposed to do. One problem I'm having is I'm not sure how to learn this stuff. I'm currently working through 'How to Really Play the Piano' by Bill Hilton and it's really good. I've been playing classical music for about 6 years now and really want to transition to learning music theory, comping, playing lead sheets, and solo arrangements. provides access to free, public domain sheet music.is a great website to learn the fundamentals of music theory.Comments that contain personal attacks, hate speech, unnecessarily derogatory or inflammatory remarks, and the like, are not welcome and will be removed.