The blues is an American art form and the most important musical form in jazz. Although there are other formal paradigms of the blues, such as 8-bar or 16-bar, this course focuses on different incarnations of the 12-bar blues. There are considerable differences between Early Jazz blues, Swing blues, Bebop blues, Modal blues, and Post Bop blues. Each type has its unique harmonic syntax, melodic vocabulary and, associated with them, improvisational techniques. While other aspects of jazz performance practice have been constantly changing from one stylistic convention to another, the blues has never lost its identity and expressive power, and continues to exert a powerful influence on the harmonic and melodic syntax of jazz.
The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form
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The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form
Instructor: Dariusz Terefenko
34,268 already enrolled
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Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.8
(596 reviews)
Beginner level
No prior experience required
Flexible schedule
Approx. 11 hours
Learn at your own pace
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What you'll learn
Students will be able to describe the blues as an important musical form.
Students will be able to explain differences in jazz and other variations of the blues.
Skills you'll gain
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Assessments
7 assignments
Taught in English
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There are 7 modules in this course
Lesson 1 focuses on foundational aspects of the blues, examining its history, innovation, and evolving harmonic structure. At the end of this lecture, students should have a firm understanding of the harmonic structure of the basic, generic, and minor blues forms, as well as a familiarity with the A A’ B phrase-structure of the blues.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment
Lesson 2 dives into what makes the blues tick, beginning with an examination of the blues scale and the basics of jazz rhythms and blues riffs. Students will then explore call and response techniques and application of the blues scale in improvisation through demonstration with a live musician.
What's included
6 videos1 assignment
Lesson 3 introduces the concept of guide tones and its association with invertible counterpoint. Four-part and five-part chords are discussed in detail by exploring their construction and function, as well as techniques to facilitate good voice-leading between chords using chordal inversions.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment
In lesson 4 students analyze harmonic progressions from 3 jazz standards: “Now’s The Time,” “Billie’s Bounce,” and “Blues For Alice.” Practice techniques are discussed, including ear-training strategies, rhythmic displacement, and voice-leading exercises.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment
Lesson 5 introduces 3 more jazz standards for analysis: “Mr. PC,” “Mr. Day,” and “Isotope.” Tritone substitutions are examined, and pentatonic scale as tools in improvisation are introduced through exploration of their construction, typical voicings, and voice-leading principles.
What's included
8 videos1 assignment
Lesson 6 centers around the demonstration of improvisational techniques discussed thus far, including motivic development, guide-tone lines, and chordal arpeggiation. Observation of live Eastman musicians, as well as play-along tracks provided by the rhythm section, allow the student to imitate, assimilate, and apply the techniques discussed in the course.
What's included
14 videos1 assignment
Lesson 7 explores modal categories and scalar patterns in improvisation, in addition to continued discussion on pentatonics. As in the previous lesson, live musicians demonstrate key concepts and principles presented in the lecture, with additional play-along tracks provided for the student to explore concepts on their own.
What's included
12 videos1 assignment
Instructor
Instructor ratings
4.9 (108 ratings)Offered by
Recommended if you're interested in Music and Art
Berklee
Berklee
California Institute of the Arts
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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