Blues for Beginners

[Jason]

In the last couple of weeks I've introduced a couple of my younger students to the blues.

One of these are students is nine and has a slight behavioral/focus problem, but a smart kid.  Had studied with someone else for a few months before me but for one reason or another it wasn't working out.  The first few lessons I sat there while he resisted looking at new music and annoyingly noodled at the piano.  I should point out that in his obnoxious noodling he was transposing little ideas around the piano, like the Beethoven minor third motif. 

Upon asking him what music he liked at the end of one of our lessons he responded "uh, I don't know..the eagles?...the blues?"   The next lesson I sat down next to him and played a blues in C and had him create melodies, first out of C and Eb, then Bb and C, and eventually combining the two.  He quickly took the form of it all, and after about 10 minutes I pointed out that he just wrote a song, which he did.  Then I switched positions with him and had him arpeggiate triads (C-E-G-E) in his left hand, off C, F, and G, switching on my cue, basically building a 12 bar walking bass line.  As he caught on I improvised over what he was doing, while reiterating that he had to be my "rock" (if got thrown of by what I was doing.) What was once a painful half-hour flew by.

I tried this with another student who isn't entirely into her lessons by expanding on one of those boogie type songs in her performance book and the enthusiasm level totally shot up.

This has me thinking a lot about using the blues as a vehicle for learning the basics.  Does anyone else have any thoughts or experiences on taking beginning piano students on this route?

[SusanN]

That is a GREAT idea. The kids will play it over and over and over (Parents, this is good!), and there are endless possibilities; variations to the bass line, transpositions, and intro to the blues scale. I love anything that increases the student's awareness of patterns on the keyboard, especially if it is fun for them (and me!).

[Jessica]

This is a great approach.  If you've ever seen Scott Houston on PBS, this is his approach.  Though he mostly aims to an audience of adults who just want to have a little fun, this is a great way to get started.  My teacher seems to be giving me the best of both worlds.  I get some formal skills going with some of the classics, but he's also showing me how to use chord progressions in order to play simple tunes by ear.  I say whatever makes them love the instrument! 

[kashi]

I am a jazz pianist teaching piano to around 9 students.  When students come to me with some experience (ie not total noobies) I usually start with the blues and get them to write their own melody to go over a walking bass line.  It gets them to face a whole range of rhythmic challenges but students seem to enjoy this challenge and are able to come out of the whole experience with a tune that they can call their own.  I tell them to listen to BB king and play along with the CD when learning to improvise (it's what I did originally).