The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-blues

Introduction

### Course Review: The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form If you have an interest in music, particularly jazz, and wish to deepen your understanding of one of its most essential roots—the blues—then Coursera's course “The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form” is an invaluable resource. This course offers a comprehensive journey into the realms of blues, its historical significance, and its technical nuances, especially focusing on the celebrated 12-bar blues. #### Course Overview: The blues has a rich tapestry woven into the fabric of American culture, and this course encapsulates its evolution and diversity. While it acknowledges other forms like the 8-bar and 16-bar blues, the curriculum zeroes in on the 12-bar structure, which is foundational for many jazz compositions. The course covers a variety of blues incarnations, from Early Jazz to Post Bop, highlighting their unique harmonic syntax, melodic vocabularies, and improvisational techniques. ### Syllabus Breakdown 1. **Blues Progressions – Theory and Practice**: The first lesson lays the groundwork by unpacking the history and evolution of the blues. Students will come away with a clear understanding of basic, generic, and minor blues forms, and develop familiarity with the A A’ B phrase structure. This foundational knowledge is essential for any aspiring blues musician. 2. **Blues Scales**: In the second lesson, the focus shifts to the blues scale. Here, learners are introduced to the basics of jazz rhythms and riffs, implementing call and response techniques that are iconic in blues music. Demonstrations with live musicians provide an engaging way to absorb improvisation techniques, enhancing both listening and playing skills. 3. **Keyboard Realization**: This lesson dives deeper into harmonic structures, introducing guide tones and invertible counterpoint. Students will explore four-part and five-part chords in detail, emphasizing voice-leading techniques, which are crucial for creating smooth transitions between chords. 4. **“Bird” Blues and Other Blues Progressions**: Lesson four encourages analysis of three jazz standards—“Now’s The Time,” “Billie’s Bounce,” and “Blues For Alice.” It introduces key practice techniques such as ear-training strategies and rhythmic displacement, helping students to better understand the application of blues progressions in popular tunes. 5. **Improvisational Tools**: Continuing with the analytical approach, this lesson introduces standards like “Mr. PC,” “Mr. Day,” and “Isotope.” Tritone substitutions and pentatonic scales are thoroughly examined as tools for improvisation, providing students with practical insights into chord construction and voicings. 6. **Improvising the Blues – Part 1**: This lesson demonstrates various improvisational techniques, from motivic development to chordal arpeggiation. Students are encouraged to observe live musicians and practice with play-along tracks, allowing them to assimilate the discussed techniques successfully. 7. **Improvising the Blues – Part 2**: The final lesson explores modal categories and further develops skills in improvisation. Live demonstrations and additional play-along opportunities solidify the concepts introduced throughout the course, ensuring students leave well-equipped to improvise within the blues idiom. ### Recommendation “The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form” is highly recommended for anyone from budding musicians to seasoned performers. It balances theoretical knowledge with practical, hands-on learning, making it accessible and applicable to various levels of experience. The course's emphasis on live demonstrations and play-along tracks enhances the learning experience, allowing students to develop a deeper connection with the art form. Whether you're aiming to enhance your improvisational skills or simply gain a richer appreciation for blues music, this Coursera course will undoubtedly enrich your musical journey. Engaging and informative, it’s a fantastic addition to your artistic toolkit, provided by seasoned musicians and educators from the esteemed Eastman School of Music. Dive into the captivating world of blues and discover how this American art form has shaped not only jazz but the music landscape as a whole.

Syllabus

Blues Progressions – Theory and Practice

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.