Lesson video

This is lesson five of unit three, where we are looking at the style of blues music.

We're going to go straight into a singing- We're going to go straight in to a singing warmup activity now, all around a scale.

In fact, we're going to look at the G major scale, but we're going to sing it a bit differently.

This is a warmup that you may have done before if you've done singing at school or in other groups.

And it's basically, we're going to sing the numbers up through to the end of the scale.

It sounds like this.

♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ Okay.

I'm going to have a go.

See if you can join in.

♪ 1 ♪ ♪ There's your starting and ♪ ♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3 ♪ ♪ 1, 2 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ Okay.

Let's have another go at the next stage and see if we can go all the way up to 8 because we've got eight notes in that scale.

It sounds like this, me first.

♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ All the way up.

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ Should we have a go? Sing with me.

♪ After a 1, 2, 3, go ♪ ♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ♪ Well done.

♪ 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ♪ Great work.

That is not an easy singing task to do.

But it's a great warmup when we're thinking about scales.

Well done.

Let's go on and have a look at what you need for today's lesson to go really well.

The first thing you're going to need is a piece of paper, or maybe a booklet that you're writing your notes from, or even the worksheet that accompanies this lesson.

The second thing you're going to need is a pencil or a pen, and definitely a different coloured pen so that you can mark or correct or make any notes throughout.

Today, you're going to need to be ready to make music.

So to do that, there's lots of different ways.

If you've got a keyboard or a piano, either at home or school, brilliant.

It's going to make it really easy for you to go through the music.

You can also play the parts we're going to learn today on an instrument of your choice.

So if you have another instrument at home, great, you can go and get that.

You could always just use your voice.

And as we've used before in previous lessons, there are loads of different musical apps that you can use to play through the tunes that we're going to learn today.

If you need to get anything on that list, pause the video now, and then come back, press play, and we'll carry on.

Great.

Let's look at our plan for today's lesson.

The first thing on our agenda is that we are going to have a look and understand how music can convey moods.

So how listening to music or playing music or the parts that have been put into music can make people feel a certain mood or can represent a certain mood.

Then we're going to learn the pitches in the blues scale.

Knowing those notes means that we're going to be able to go on and improvise some short phrases in "Bags' Groove", which is the blues piece that we learned in lesson four.

Great.

Now we know what we're doing.

Let's carry on.

We are going to listen to another version of "Bags' Groove".

This is Miles Davis.

He is an extremely famous blues and jazz artist and trumpet player.

He also composed his own music, but he released an album called, "BG", where he performed "Bags' Groove", but it was Milt Jackson, who we looked at in lesson four, who originally played the song.

So this is a different version of "Bags' Groove", or just played with a different band.

So what we're going to do now, while we listen to this clip twice, is I want you to write five sentences about why you think this version of "Bags' Groove" sounds really relaxing.

Use the bullet points in blue on the left hand side to help you write your answers.

Here's the clip for the first time.

Okay, so make a start on those five sentences.

Thinking about tempo, instruments and how they're playing, melody, rhythm, and then maybe any musical features that we've learned about so far in the unit.

Here's the clip for the second time.

Pause the video now and take another three minutes or so to finish writing your five sentences, talking about why Miles Davis' version of "Bags' Groove" sounds really relaxing.

Okay, great.

I've got a few answers here, bullet pointed out.

So five that I would recognise.

Let's go through those together and hopefully some of your answers match.

But you may have also come up with some brilliant ideas about why you think this piece of music is relaxing.

So please make sure you go and share your answers with your teachers at school.

First point, the tempo is steady.

So it creates a calming mood.

The tempo, the speed, is not really energetic and all exciting.

It's a steady tempo, which helps it be really calming.

The drums are playing a simple, shuffled, swung, repeated rhythm.

So quite a lot of information in that sentence.

But if you remember the drum shuffle, the swung.

or.

That swung feel also can be really relaxing.

The drummer is playing them with something called brush sticks.

So as the name says, there's metal prawns that create more of a brush rather than a hard wooden stick.

And so the dynamics aren't really loud.

Okay, it's not overpowering the other instruments or it's not being a really loud piece of music.

Another reason it sounds relaxing.

The tone of the trumpet.

Okay, so the sonority of the trumpet is really smooth.

Trumpets are loud instruments.

They can really make some noise, especially in fanfares and other pieces of music like that.

But Miles Davis chooses to play it with a very calming tone.

It's all very smooth.

And the tone is really pure.

It's lovely.

The melody is fairly stepwise.

So pictures are returned to which make it really lyrical, really memorable.

With the sort of repetition of the head.

And the fact that note goes back in itself.

Ah, so we go back.

go back again.

So that fairly stepwise motion makes the melody really lyrical.

Again, so it sits nicely on top of the rest of the band.

The vibraphone has a really soothing tone.

Okay, that big metal xylophone we saw Milt Jackson play is also in this version of "Bags' Groove".

And the tone, the sound the vibraphone makes is very calming.

Again, it's not too accented, it's not too loud.

And it plays in a really nice harmonising part to the main head or melody that Miles Davis is playing on the trumpet.

If you've got any of those, brilliant work.

Tick and correct through your five sentences and add any of that information, if you were missing it.

Great.

Now we've had a look at why "Bags' Groove" can be such a relaxing mood and that's the mood it conveys.

Let's have a look at the next part of our lesson.

We're going to learn a bit about the pictures in a blues scale.

To understand how the blues scale is created, we need to explore the other scales in the same key.

So we're going to focus on G major because that's what the cords and the baseline and the head of "Bags' Groove".

We've all based it around.

So we're going to stay in the same key.

And we're going to do a comparison activity here.

The top line is the G major scale as it is.

In fact, that was what we signed for our intro.

♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ 1 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 1 ♪ ♪ G ♪ ♪ G, A, G ♪ ♪ G, A, B, A, G ♪ ♪ G, A, B, C, B, A, G ♪ Okay, so that's this line here.

♪ G, A, B, C, D, C, B, A, G ♪ Underneath, is something called the G major pentatonic.

And this scale is often used to improvise around in styles of music like blues.

Have a look at that pentatonic scale.

Think about its name, pentatonic.

And tell me, how is it different to the G major scale? Write it down on your piece of paper.

How is the pentatonic created from the G major or sound different to the G major? Okay.

Hopefully you've spotted that it's very similar notes to the major scale, but they've just taken some of them out.

So there's no C in a pentatonic and there's no F sharp.

It's G, A, B, D, E, and then G.

How do you think it got it's name, pentatonic? It's called pentatonic because it's based around five pictures.

G, A, B, D, E.

And then we've got G at the end of the octave, but again, it's G like we've had before.

So it's based around five notes in that scale.

G, A, B, D, E.

Let me just play it for you.

G, A, B, D, E.

Okay, so there's our G major pentatonic.

Well done.

Let's look one step further at the blues scale.

'Cause that's what we're going to be focusing on today.

In fact, this is called a hexatonic blues scale.

So have a look at that bottom row and think, how is it different to the major scale? How is it different to the pentatonic scale? And why do you think it's called a hexatonic blues scale? Take a minute now to write your answers on your piece of paper.

Right.

So from the grid, we should be able to see that in the blues scale, the second note hasn't been played.

The second note is not played, so there's no A.

The third note, they've flattened.

That's what that B means.

They flattened it.

So they made it a slightly lower pitch.

The C is there.

We have D, but they've also flattened that.

So it becomes D flat.

They've taken E out because we want D there.

And we still have an F, but it's not F sharp anymore.

It's a normal F.

Do you know what they've done with that one? They flattened that as well, yes.

Good, well done.

So to take it from F sharp to F natural, they have to make it slightly lower.

So they've flattened it.

The blues scale sounds like this.

G, B flat, C, D flat, D, F and G.

So the blues notes are the third, the fifth and the seventh.

Cause they've been flattened.

And that's what makes it sound bluesy.

That flattened note, that flattened note, that flattened note, and back up to G.

Great.

Did you work out why it's called hexatonic? I bet you did.

Just similar to pentatonic.

There's six notes in this scale instead of eight.

Or seven with the G, or six main pitches.

And that's why it's called hexatonic.

Great analysis of scales.

And the blues scale we're going to look at there.

Here's what it looks like written out on a keyboard.

G, B flat, C, D flat, D, F, G.

And I've got my keyboard here on my app to play through it to show you.

G, B flat, C, D flat, so a B flat and a D flat are black keys in between the white.

G, B flat, C, D flat, D, F, A.

Okay.

So there it is on your keyboard.

The other thing I want to show you is how these scales are played on a guitar.

This is Tim, and he's going to show you two ways of playing scales in G major on the guitar that fit really well with creating melodies over blues music.

Here's the first one based around the pentatonic.

This is the blues pentatonic scale in G major.

Great demonstration.

So what Tim did there is he went up the notes of the pentatonic scale that fits well in G major.

And then he actually went back down them as well.

So any of you keen guitarists, hope you're watching clearly with his finger positions and the frets he was on to find the notes in the pentatonic scale.

Here's the blues scale with those two extra flattened notes.

So there was B flat in this one, in his pentatonic.

Here, he's also adding the D flat and the F natural.

Let's listen.

This is the same G major blues pentatonic scale, but adding the blues notes.

This is two notes that add a little bit more feel to the scale.

There was one.

There's two.

There it is again.

There it is.

Great.

So there's both examples of those scales on the guitar.

So, what I'd like you to do now is either on a guitar, a keyboard, maybe you want to have a go at singing it, is I want you to practise playing the blues scale.

So the G major blues scale, that's got the flattened third, fifth, and seventh note.

So, I'll show you one more time.

So if you haven't got a keyboard or guitar and you don't want to sing, remember you can grab an app.

But here's the blue scale again.

G, B flat, C, D flat, D, F, back down, D, D flat, C, B flat.

So I suggest the first thing you do is just travel up and down that scale to get you used to where the notes are.

I really want you to know confidently what those notes are for us to be able to go on to our next task.

So take a good 10 minutes, just practising that scale.

So you know exactly where the notes are.

If you start doing that really comfortably, then you can start to maybe play that scale with a bit of an interesting rhythm.

Remember, Tim said that these notes add a bit of feel, and that's what blues is all about.

It's all about feel and attitude and conveying certain moods.

So you could add a bit of rhythm to it.

Oh.

Okay, so practise going up and down the scale is still, but maybe adding some swung rhythms and more interesting patterns.

10 minutes, off you go.

Great.

Welcome back.

I'm sure you are starting to fly your fingers around the blues scale and G major, whether that be on keyboard or guitar.

We now know how music can convey different moods and attitudes and feelings.

You had a go at constructing and playing the pitches that are in the blues scale in G.

And now, you're going to have a go at improvising a short phrase in "Bags' Groove".

Let's just remind ourselves of the head for "Bags' Groove".

Hopefully, if you were with us last lesson, then that head is literally stuck in your head 'cause we played through it and made sure we could practise it last week.

I want to talk to you about a particular melodic device.

So a melody device in music, and it's used a lot in improvisation, called Q&A.

Question and answer.

First of all, I want you to think, why do you think question and answer, so two phrases, a question and an answer would be really popular in music? Why wouldn't we just have a piece of music with loads of questions? I think the reason that this is used a lot in music is because it makes melodies and phrases sound complete.

They sound finished.

They also sound more interesting.

If it was all the same question over and over again, I think the piece of music would get a bit boring.

So by having a question and answer, It's like a conversation.

And so it's much more interesting to listen to.

And then we can have a nice finish to our piece of music with an answer.

In blues music, they often use a short, improvised phrase as their answer.

Do you know what improvisation means? It means when an artist will make something up on the top of their head during the performance, okay.

They'll just do it on the spot.

Why do you think they can do that in blues music? What do they have? What have we just learned? We've just learned the blues scale.

And so improvisers can just make things up on the spot and it's going to fit as long as they use the notes within the blues scale.

Okay.

Let's analyse just for another moment, this head.

Because it's going to help us with creating our own improvised phrases in a moment.

Why do you think this is such a successful and popular blues head? And which blues musical features can you see in this melody? Take one minute, one or two minutes, and write the answers to this on your piece of paper.

Pause the video and answer these two questions.

Why do you think this is such a successful and popular blues head? Milt Jackson created it, but Miles Davis recorded a whole song around it.

And loads of other blues artists and even more modern bands today play this piece.

Why is this such a popular blues head? And what bluesy musical features can you see in this melody? Take two minutes.

Pause the video now.

Okay, let's go through our answers and see what you've got.

So the reason I think this is such a successful and popular blues head.

We looked at it a little bit when we listened to Miles Davis perform it.

It's very lyrical.

It's why it was easy for us to sing.

When melodies are lyrical, it makes them memorable.

And then people enjoy playing it and singing it.

Because it travels in a step wise motion, D, down to one note, C.

♪ B flat, C ♪ So there's a little leap there, but it goes C, B, G, F, G.

So it's all very similar notes on the keyboard.

So it makes it really easy to play.

And so it becomes a really successful piece because it's easy for lots of different performers and artists to access it.

And I don't know about you, but from playing it in my last lesson, I was singing it for the rest of the week.

Which blues musical features can you see in this melody? So what features would we expect to hear in blues does this head have? There's three main ones.

One, the swung quavers.

♪ Long, short, long, ♪ ♪ Long, short, long ♪ Swung quavers, which we have in blues music.

The second is there are repeated patterns.

So here, we've got quaver quaver, crotchet, quaver quaver, crotchet, quaver, quaver.

And those repeated patterns is something we would also expect to hear in blues music.

It also uses similar notes.

This B flat keeps coming back.

Where is this B flat from? Why did Milt Jackson decide to put this B flat into this head? Because it's the flattened third from the blue scale.

Yes.

Very good.

So, because that's the bluesy note, and he's included it one, two, three times in this piece of music is another reason it sounds really bluesy.

Keep those three things in your mind.

Swung patterns, sorry, swung quavers, repeated patterns, and repeated pictures around the blues scale.

And let's see if we can put that into our own.

Let's go back to our brief.

Your teacher at school is planning to do an assembly to celebrate blues musicians.

So people like Milt Jackson and Miles Davis.

And you're going to perform in your band, "Bags' Groove".

Now we've learned the head.

We know it fits the G major 12 bar blues, and we know we're probably going to put the shuffle drum in.

But for it to sound bluesy, we need to include improvisations.

Here is how I suggest you structure your improvisation.

Question and answer.

The head is the question.

The improvisation is the answer.

The head is the question.

The improvisation is the answer.

Follow this A, B, A, C structure if you're going to improvise on your own today.

If you have the rest of your band with you or you're with another person, and you can work as a pair, then I suggest player A plays the head.

Then player B plays the head.

Then player A does the improvisation.

So it goes, head, improvisation, head, improvisation.

First thing you need to do is you practise how to improvise on your own.

So now we've got that blues scale in our head.

We need to practise, and it doesn't need it, just short phrase, it's going in between the head repeating.

So the head is.

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

So you've got seven beats to create an improvisation for.

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And the head comes in again.

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

So you've got seven beats.

After that last G in the head, to then come up with your own improvisation.

And you're just going to use the notes.

Now remember, why is the head so successful? Repeated notes, repeated patterns, and in a swung rhythm.

So don't over complicate it.

Don't try and put every note in the scale in, you don't need to.

It's only a short phrase.

So the head goes.

So it could just be that.

It's a swung rhythm, it uses just three notes.

When I go up the scale a little bit, and I come back down again.

That's absolutely fine.

So don't worry if you make mistakes, or you don't find the right notes, or your fat fingers go over the keys like mine did.

That's absolutely fine.

You're going to take quite a lot of time now.

At least 10 minutes, just practising , thinking about playing around with repeated patterns, and pitches, and swung rhythms, in the blues scale for your seven beats of improvisation.

Enjoy.

Off you go.

Okay.

So you've perfected how to play the blues head for "Bags' Groove".

You've learned the blues scale.

You've now used that scale to create some short two bar or seven beat improvisation phrases.

Again, how does all of this fit with the rest of your band? Now we need to take the 12 bar blues structure.

As you can see.

Four Gs, two Cs, two Gs, a D, a C, a G, and then either a G or a D depending if it's the end, or if it's, you're going to turn around and do the structure again.

The reason we've broken it into the head is two bars long, and your improvisation is two bars long, is 'cause it makes it easy to fit with the structure.

The head falls here.

And then you repeat.

Okay, not very good scatting at all.

You will do a much better job.

But that is how it fits within the structure.

And I'm going to show you that now using a recorded chord pattern.

Okay.

So here's how we take our 12 bar blues structure, and we put our head question phrase and our improvisation answer phrase over the top of that structure.

Let me show you an example.

Okay, so I've recorded the chords already on here.

Press the chords.

And this is the head, fits anywhere, takes two bars.

Nice slow rhythm.

And there's our turnaround call to start again.

So we want, head, improvised phrase, head, improvised phrase, head, improvised phrase, and that's the 12 bars complete.

Remember you're just.

using the chord, uh, using the scale.

G, B flat, C, D flat, D, F, G.

Let's have a go.

Head first.

Backing track.

Improvisation.

Head.

So there's nothing too complicated in my improvisations there.

I picked different parts of the blues scale to make it interesting, but I repeated a lot of my notes.

Was my first.

And.

Long short, long short.

Remember your swung rhythms. And then was my final one.

So not too many notes.

I'm not rushing around right now.

I'm just getting used to improvising swung rhythms in short repeated phrases.

Okay.

Have fun performing your head with your improvised phrases in your 12 bar blues chord structure.