It’s been a busy week recording with our Seattle-based teachers and we have lots of great new content in the pipeline.
Our blues/boogie-woogie expert Steve has recorded a wonderful course on “Chicago Blues” style which focuses on left hand shuffle patterns and hand independence.
Here’s the introduction lesson for the course:
The course contains the following 7 lessons:
Lesson 1 - History Of Blues/Course Intro (above)
Lesson 2 - The Harmonic & Rhythmic Structure Of The Blues
Lesson 3 - Left Hand Shuffle Patterns
Lesson 4 - Chord, Comping Rhythms, & Hand Independence
Lesson 5 - Barrelhouse Licks & Riffs
Lesson 6 - Fast Blues “Spann’s Stomp”
Lesson 7 - Slow Blues “Trouble In Mind”
Our key goal with this course is to help our students with hand independence.
The left hand shuffle patterns and basslines found in Chicago Blues are an accessible and fun way to develop our hand independence.
Steve demonstrates how to set a steady rhythm in the left hand using simple shuffle patterns and then develop our hand independence through right hand comping, licks and improv, and Steve even throws in a few bluesy vocals here and there
Pay attention to the above video where Steve shares some wisdom on the importance of listening and transcribing, and how this is essential to develop our own sound, and our own style. Very important for all of us!
This new course will be a nice addition to our syllabus and I think it will give students a nice ‘stepping stone’ to progress into Steve’s more advanced Boogie Woogie materials.
We have 3 more lessons in the editing stage for this course but I decided it made sense to publish the current 5 lessons for us all to study.
This slow Chicago Blues is a wonderful style to develop our hand independence skills.
We have also designed this course as a ‘stepping stone’ into Steve’s more advanced Boogie Woogie course.
The left hand patterns found in Chicago Blues are generally easier to play from a technical standpoint and lead on nicely into the more advanced basslines found in Boogie Woogie.
I’ll update this thread as the final 3 lessons are published.
I don’t see a location to specifically ask questions about the lessons. I mean, I am working through this course but need a point of clarification. Where should I as this question where I know the instructor will see it and answer?
We can ask questions in the “Comments” section of every lesson page. When a comment is posted on a lesson page I am notified via email and all questions are answered:
You can often find common Q&As in the lesson page comments, and so it can be nice to peruse that section of the lesson page whilst watching the lessons.
2) The “Jazz Theory Questions” Forum Category
You can also ask questions here in the forum which opens up the discussion with our other students and teachers.
We have a specific forum category for theory questions here:
You can also use this search box to search the forum as it could be that there are already threads and discussions on the topic in question:
