Teaching the 12 Bar Blues

Everything you need to know about teaching the blues and basic improvising

While many teachers know the basics of teaching the 12 bar blues from my previous videos, what do you do after the initial lesson? How do you keep developing a student’s skills in this area of music? Teaching the 12 Bar Blues is a 10-part course that will guide you through everything you need to know about teaching the blues, basic improvising and how to develop skills in this area which will help students down the track.

Course outline

  1. Module 1: The Blues Chord Progression (Comping)
  2. Module 2: Basic Blues Improvising
  3. Module 3: Left Hand Patterns
  4. Module 4: More Improvising Tricks
  5. Module 5: Playing the Blues in Different Keys
  6. Module 6: Cool Chord Shapes and Rootless Voicings
  7. Module 7: Syncopated Comping (Chord Playing)
  8. Module 8: My Blues 'Walkup'
  9. Module 9: Moving Chords to the LH and Improvising with the RH
  10. Module 10: Styles, Lead Sheets and Summary

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Teaching the 12 Bar Blues was created by

Tim Topham

Founder of TopMusic and Host of Integrated Music Teaching Podcast

Tim Topham is the founder and director of TopMusic. Tim hosts the popular Integrated Music Teaching Podcast, blogs regularly at topmusic.co and speaks at local and international conferences on topics such as integrated teaching, creativity, business, marketing and entrepreneurship. Tim has been featured in American Music Teacher, The Piano Teacher Magazine, California Music Teacher and EPTA Piano Professional. Tim holds an MBA in Educational Leadership, BMus, DipEd and AMusA.

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Course Overview

While many teachers know the basics of teaching the 12 bar blues from my previous videos, what do you do after the initial lesson? How do you keep developing a student's skills in this area of music? This 10-part course will guide you through everything you need to know about teaching the blues, basic improvising and how to develop skills in this area which will help students down the track. All videos have lesson plans and associated downloads below the video content and most videos are less than 10 minutes. Click here to download the full set of lessons plans from every module.  To access the videos, just click a link in the navigation on the right. We hope this is helpful in your teaching - feel free to leave comments under each lesson if you've got any thoughts or questions.  

HOW TO BEGIN

Are you ready to get started? Just click the Enrol in course button below to activate your course. Then click Start Course to begin learning. If you’re on our app, click the Start Course button to enrol in the course and then Start Course again to begin the first lesson.

COURSE NAVIGATION TIPS

  • You can always access any course you’ve enrolled in via your My Courses section from the main menu.
  • Your course progress will be saved each time you click complete at the bottom of a lesson page.
  • If you’d like to save a specific lesson page to quickly access it later and you’re on the website, you can click the bookmark icon in the top-right corner of that page. You can find all your bookmark links by going to My Bookmarks from the main menu.
  • You’re welcome to complete a course as many times as you wish. If the course enrol button says completed, start it again by clicking the first lesson in the Course Content list at the bottom of this course homepage.

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