The teacher is a treasure. He is clearly in love with the subject and teaching. His students are so lucky. I play the guitar, and this is a more piano-focused course, but it didn't stop me, and it would not stop you either. Even without knowing the piano, I understood everything and learned so much. I had some former blues/jazz training, but it is suitable for absolute beginners as well. There are so many examples that anyone can learn. The course rating has only five stars available, but I would give it six. Totally recommended.

What an awesome course! A must learn for any musician who is caught in a rut and is looking to jazz to expand their knowledge and ability. This gives you such great organised information that cannot be acquired except through formal music studies/classes from a tutor. Surely not a course for beginners though. Thanks to Mr. Dariusz Terefenko for his meticulous preparation of the course, his generosity in sharing his knowledge and for thinking ahead to prepare backing tracks for the student. Full marks to him and to the course.

This is an informative course for anyone interested in improvisation, regardless of your current level of achievement. If you have learned by yourself, with the help of instructors or friends over the years, you will find this course of benefit for filling in the holes of your knowledge. if you are a beginning or intermediate student, it is highly recommended as a means of understanding how to improvise. There are plenty for opportunities to practice with a rhythm section which is a great opportunity.

Excellent !!!

Through the study of the Blues from it's early manifestations, this course presents Jazz theory and practice, in a coherent, to the point way. The teacher is excellent, very articulate, very clear, just amazing.

Don't loose time and energy trying to find the concepts all around the place (internet) and attempting to assemble them in a coherent way, take this course instead, you will be rewarded with valuable knowledge, super well organized, and you will become a better musician.

G

This is perfect course that overviews jazz blues evolution over time. It introduces the ideas to investigate both for soloist to improvise melodies, as well as for other musicians to provide harmonic and rhytmic context for soloist. It suggests very useful exercises to everybody, that will help to develop modulation and improvisation skills. Throughout the course I understood harmonies of many songs I tried to play before, and now I am able to better improvise on them.

The Course Contents Quality is very good overall. The explanations applied to the instruments are also beautifully done. I like the historical references and the evolution of the course. This course is probably heavy for someone new as the concepts are not basic as the course advances. However for someone who already has good basic this course is excellent, it is well organized and very well presented including the performances. Thanks i really loved this course.

A wonderfull course, this is exactly what I was looking for a long time. Mr. Dariousz is a wonderful teacher, I have a deep respect for his knowledge. His manner of presentaton of the material is very intelligent. During training in this course, I noticed that I was tallking with my students, using his intonations, I was under his influence. I got a necessary knowledge for my work and the pleasure of communication with a great musician. Thank you, Mr. Terefenko!

This a formidable course that has given me a thourough understanding of jazz harmony, of the development of jazz harmonic language exemplified by the blues, and a plethora of practical exercises, both ear training and (primarily keyboard) playing. The play-along tracks are very useful, too, and last, but not least, it was wonderful to listen to the talented young jazz music students, who demonstrated various aspects of the subjects taught.

I've done quite a few online courses and have been studying Jazz intensively and seriously since 2009. This is, hands down, the best course I've found on the subject of improvisation - because it is so carefully organized and well explained. Mr. Terefenko does an amazing job taking you through the various blues types and improvisational devices. My only regret is that I didn't find years ago, as I was starting! Absolutely top material.

It´s an excelent course, with a lot of material to study for long time. The explanations are clear and step by step. Professor Dariusz Terefenko is a great teacher and also a great player. Their students play great demonstrations on explained topics. I learn a lot about, otherwise difficult topics, on jazz styles, jazz harmony and improvisation using modes and other techniques. All applied over 12 bar blues structure.

Excellent course, not only to understand and learn about the Blues form, but also as a primer for Jazz.

Dariusz Terefenko is a great pedagogue. He makes all concepts very accessible, easy to understand and to put into practice. The course is nicely put together: packed with theory, practice tips and live examples.

I do not hesitate to recommend this course to anyone interested in playing Blues and Jazz.

Great for people who want to compose, not just jazz, good music. The more music notions the student has, the more fluidity he/she will have following the lessons, even playing along. But many lessons, concerning scales, modes, comping techniques, are useful for very novice learners. This is not an interactive course, but for people like me who are almost starting with music, is not a bad thing.

Excellent course. It is all about theory, which is fantastic, with some facility provided to enable improvisation. It would be great to extend this course to a hands-on improvisation. How about a part 2 - practical implementation of the introduced improvisational concepts?

Many thanks to prof. Terefenko and the band members - what a gathering of talent!

Best regards,

Pawel Slomowicz

i found this course very very helpful the way of teaching was excellent and the tips provided through this course was awesome and interesting. now i can improvise by using different scales and pattern which i found very different in jazz and blues improvisation. overall it was a great course which i found very helpful..........thanks a lot coursera for providing this type of course.

Excellent course. The lectures are well organized and illustrated with good examples. This professor not only has a remarkable fund of knowledge but understands how to teach the material focussing on key points, practical tips and fun. I will certainly obtain his book to continue learning and hope he will consider teaching additional courses on this site.

Some difficulty understanding instructor had to review some of the material. Need to improve my limited piano skills to better understand what was discussed. Able to play along with backing tracts in the later chapters. If the reference texts weren't so expensive would gladly have purchased them. as I have with other online coursera programs.

The course was incredibly well organized and had a great deal of information on the blues from its beginnings to todays music. Many great examples of blues were discussed. Many fantastic ideas on how to improve on improvisation. The course has inspired me to learn more about this musical form and to delve more into improvisation. Thank you!

Class is amazing if you have just a bit of theory background, and especially if you have a keyboard to practice some of the stuff on. Excellent professor, great appearances and performances on trumpet, bass, etc.. Also a nice intro to jazz piano. Happy to see Eastman contributing some top caliber material to a major mooc platform.

This course discusses several important aspects of Jazz and Blues music. And the course is well outlined, so it gradually gives you the fuller information and demonstrates for you what was earlier taught through a jam. It has been very helpful for me, I would suggest any one interested in blues and Jazz should take this course.

Excellent course! The professor explains and demonstrates things in a very clear and coherent manner. As a classically trained pianist, I often find all things jazz & blues mystifying. This course is a great introduction to the techniques and strategies behind improvisation; I will continue to review and practice the material.

I think this is a very complete course that teaches in detail the history and development of The Blues, backed up by extent theoretical content. I definetely learned a lot from it and also gave me all i need to continue developing my playng skills. Thanks to Coursera and all the people involved in the creation of this course.

The course was very interesting. In my case I did not know technical details about Blues and Jazz, so taking this course was very beneficial. The teacher in charge was very clear throughout the sessions. But a greater practice is necessary that allows the acquisition of all the different aspects treated during the course.

Brings together a lot of the 'book' theory in a pretty comprehensive and comprehensible form, with playing examples individually and in ensemble. Having struggled with some of this material in the past, I found Dariusz explanations really helped me move my comprehension of this subject area along quite dramatically.

Mr. Terefenko exhibited passion for his subject, which is always motivating for a student. His lectures were thorough, articulate and comprehensible for this singer who has had much theory in the past but does not play an instrument. I found the improvisations fun to sing along with and very useful. Thank you.

I'm not an english speaker and with the english subtitles I was able to understand everything, and the course content is very insightful, I'm going to be a long time coming back to some concepts and ideas for their detailed study and practice. I'm really gratefull and I recommend it, don't hesitate to do it!