Taught by renowned pianist
Peter Dugan
The blues is the basis for an endless variety of music made in the past century, and anyone can learn to play it. In 9 interactive lessons, classical-jazz crossover artist and host of NPR's "From the Top" Peter Dugan invites you to sit down at your piano or another keyboard instrument and learn the basic elements of the blues without sheet music. If you're new to the blues – whether an experienced classical player or just getting started at the piano – this course is for you!
Intro
Sit down at a keyboard instrument and get ready to learn the blues with pianist Peter Dugan!
Blues Licks
While you now have all the vocabulary and grammar to be conversational with the blues at the keyboard, your road to deep fluency and artistry has only just begun. To reach the heights and depths of the blues soul, you immerse yourself in recordings of the greatest blues masters of the 20th century, picking up idioms you hear and figuring them out at the piano in different keys. In this lesson, Peter Dugan gets you started with some useful "licks" he's picked up from decades of listening to and playing the blues.
12-Bar Blues
At the heart of the blues is a 12-bar form, containing a simple harmonic progression divided over three 4-bar phrases. In this lesson, Peter Dugan shows you how to play and feel this 12-bar form using harmonies I, IV, and V in C with a classic left-hand blues pattern. Originally a vocal genre, Dugan invents some lyrics to help show you how the origin of the phrase structure is found in rhetoric.
The Blues Scale
The blues scale is a simple, yet emotionally potent collection of notes. Rather than thinking of it as a scale to practice in rising and falling motion between two points, Peter Dugan teaches you the scale in a more practical way – with scale degree 1 as the center of gravity. Adding scale degrees above and below 1, Dugan works his way outward to 5 on either side of the key center in C, inviting you to invent your own melodies along the way: first with a single note, then two, then three, and so on until you've incorporated the "blue note" and are comfortable improvising your own blues melodies.
Left Hand Patterns
After learning a simple left-hand ostinato and starting to invent your own tunes using the blues scale in your right hand, soon you'll want to explore different patterns in your left hand. In this lesson, Peter Dugan shows you how to extend I, IV, and V as dominant 7th chords, which provide more material for experimenting with left-hand patterns. Rhythmically, you might also like to move away from swung 8th notes to explore other grooves, so Dugan offers a classic funk rhythm for you to play around with.
Playing in Different Keys
The blues can't only be played in C, especially when you start jamming with other musicians whose instruments lend themselves to specific keys. Peter Dugan shows you how to think in terms of scale degrees and roman numerals in order to quickly transpose your blues into other keys.
The Minor Blues
With just three chords, one scale, and a few simple patterns, you can already spend hours inventing your own original blues. But sometimes you'll want to change the mood. In this lesson, Peter Dugan shows you how to play the so-called "minor blues." By swapping dominant 7ths with minor 7ths and tweaking the harmonic progression slightly, you'll enter a totally new sound world.
The Major Blues Scale
Just as you can darken the mood by altering the harmonic progression using minor 7ths, you can also brighten up the mood by basing your scale on major pentatonic. In this lesson, Peter Dugan shows you the elements of the major blues scale and how to create new effects over the original bass progression.
Variations in the Form
Great blues playing is filled with color and variety, and you'll need some extra tools to get your blues to really "pop." In this lesson, Peter Dugan breaks down a few variations in the form that you can draw on to make your blues even more compelling, including modifications to the harmonic progression, using a "turnaround" to swing things back to the beginning after 12 bars, and adding a "shout chorus" for when you're really ready to let loose.
The Jazz Blues
As you can see, the blues can create endless moods and colors with just three chords, but there are even more endless varieties of expression that can be achieved with some simple harmonic inserts taken from jazz. In this lesson, Peter Dugan shows you how jazz players stack and insert ii-V-I progressions within different harmonic structures in order to create different kinds of energy and flavor – and how you can do the same with your blues.
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Unlock Course →Pianist Peter Dugan is best known to audiences in the United States as the host of NPR’s From the Top. Equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms, he enjoys an eclectic career that includes appearances from concert halls to night clubs, with recent album releases with Joshua Bell and Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.
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