My blogging has been rather sporadic so far this month — this is a busy time of year for piano teachers, isn’t it! I’m so glad my Spring Recital is over, but this month is still somehow very booked. 🙂
On Saturday, I had another Piano Party with my students. It was a small group of students this time because it was the tail-end of Spring Break when many students were out-of-town. However, I took advantage of the fact that I was working with just four students and planned to do something a little bit different this time! Our theme-of-the-day was chords. Students play duets with each other, one student playing a melody and the other accompanying with chords. Two students played on my Kawai, and the other two played on my keyboard which I set up in the guest bedroom.
One of the things we did was a duet improvisation with the 12-bar blues. Tim Topham has made a video that breaks down the 12-bar blues into manageable steps for teachers to use with
their students:
To help my students learn how to improvise the 12-bar blues, I created this printable:
On page 1, the notes of the C blues scale are shown both on the keyboard and on the staff. I put the student sitting on the treble side of the keyboard in charge of playing a melody using these notes. If you are not doing a duet, this is simply the RH part. I helped the student work out a good fingering to use.
Then, I showed page 2 of the printable to the other student. I chose the “Blocked 5ths & 6ths” pattern and made sure the student understood how to play the pattern for each chord change.
Finally, I showed students the 12-bar blues progression on Page 1 and set them loose to work it out! The most important part, of course, was helping them learn to listen to each other to stay on beat. I went back-and-forth between the duet pairs and coached them throughout the process.
I plan to follow-up with these students during their next lesson, to further experiment with the 12-bar blues. It was a fun part of our Piano Party this month!
You can download the “12-Bar Blues in C” printable (it’s free!) on the Downloads > Sheet Music page.
12-Bar Blues in C (642.8 KiB, 54,063 hits)
I love this idea! What a fun group class activity. Thanks so much!
I’m feeling a fun summer class coming to this studio!!
What a great idea and a great printable! I love teaching beginners the 12-bar blues. Such an easy, fun, learnable little structure and a perfect way to get students improvising. Thanks for sharing that video, too.
Thanks Joy !!
Can’t wait till I try this out :))
Susan
Thanks for the printable! I use the 12-bar blues pattern a lot for students doing the Guild Musicianship Phase: Improvisation. I like having the kids begin their RH with 3rd finger on C instead of thumb. So the scale would be G-Bb-C-Eb, or with more notes as they are able. Having the tonic in the middle gives them a way to use the 7th with ease.
I did something like this during summer of this year. My students who are mostly between the ages of 10 and 14 years old enjoyed every bit of it.
I love the materials that you have created.
All the best!
Carlinton
what kind of melody do you get them to play. Do you have them make it up?
Yes, they improvise the RH using the blues scale or part of the blues scale.
Please, I want to learn How to play the 12 bar blues.
Hallo.
I’m interesting learning Blues on my Button C-grip accordion.
I’m not sure how is the best way to learning that.
Best regards.
Gudrun.