The Process of Learning the Minor Pentatonic Scale
The Process of teaching students to learn how to play the minor pentatonic scale began by assessing my final goal and coming up with a sequential logical and fairly easy to follow process.
First I created worksheets to introduce the scale to students in a clear and straightforward fashion. The student first study the scale both in class, and for homework and submit recordings of their studies through Schoology.
After a week or two, I introduce the "Pentatonic Workouts and Technical Studies." In each of these the student is challenged by trying to play the scale in a variety of rhythms and in various intervallic combinations.
Finally after weeks of study of the workouts and technical studies, the students are finally introduced to melodic fragments or scaffolded solos where the students learns segments of a solo created with the minor pentatonic scale, that put together create an entire sample of a improvised solo created from the notes of the minor pentatonic scale.
Blues Performance Lesson & Research
Blues is an American Heritage, and it should be noted as such. Blues is a musical art form with it's own distinct musical progressions and much more. The Blues is a musical genre. The Blues means a lot of things to a lot of people.
Blues is an African-American music that traverses a wide range of emotions and musical styles. “Feeling blue” is expressed in songs whose verses lament injustice or express longing for a better life and lost loves, jobs, and money. But blues is also a raucous dance music that celebrates pleasure and success. Central to the idea of blues performance is the concept that, by performing or listening to the blues, one is able to overcome sadness and lose the blues.
Blues remains with us in contemporary American culture, and as a traditional musical form it has been subjected to countless revivals and reinterpretations. Its current practitioners often integrate the sounds and instrumental pyrotechnics of rock music and the sheen of urban soul; but the twelve-bar form, variations on the blues chord progression, and emotive lyrical content remain relatively unchanged.
A Brief Introduction to The Blues
Blues is an American Heritage, and it should be noted as such. Blues is a musical art form with it's own distinct musical progressions and much more. The Blues is a musical genre. The Blues means a lot of things to a lot of people.
Blues is an African-American music that traverses a wide range of emotions and musical styles. “Feeling blue” is expressed in songs whose verses lament injustice or express longing for a better life and lost loves, jobs, and money. But blues is also a raucous dance music that celebrates pleasure and success. Central to the idea of blues performance is the concept that, by performing or listening to the blues, one is able to overcome sadness and lose the blues.
Blues remains with us in contemporary American culture, and as a traditional musical form it has been subjected to countless revivals and reinterpretations. Its current practitioners often integrate the sounds and instrumental pyrotechnics of rock music and the sheen of urban soul; but the twelve-bar form, variations on the blues chord progression, and emotive lyrical content remain relatively unchanged.