Cure the Blues of Teaching the Blues

A Warm Up that gets your students Swingin’ and Jammin’

When I began teaching back in the “stone age” most of my students had been in high school. My responsibilities as Associate Director of Bands were multi-faceted: Marching Band, three Concert Bands, two Jazz Bands (both outside of school hours), two/three sections of Music Theory, Musical Pit Orchestra and on occasion Music Director for the musical chorus. Needless to say I was spread pretty thin and nearing burn out.

Then I moved from teaching high school instrumental music, grades 10-12, to junior high, grades 7-9. (I’m showing my age now. Do junior high schools even exist anymore?) I still had a pretty big load, including two jazz bands. The good thing was one of these jazz bands was during the school day, but the other one was before school…….at 7:00 a.m.!!

With both junior high school jazz bands I needed a method of getting rehearsals started that utilized stylistically appropriate materials within their technical capabilities. At the time there were none available that suited my needs, so I developed a method to give the ensembles an established warm up routine that included instructional material.

I wanted something that I could count off and would continue until I indicated an end. When developing this warm up, my goals were threefold:

1. Teach the basic 12-bar Blues Progression form

2. Teach students the Bb, Eb and F Concert Blues Scales

3. Encourage improvisation in a safe and non-threatening environment.

The result was my “Blues Warm Up for Jazz Ensemble.” I used this warm up for the next 20 years with great success. Even without a full rhythm section or full instrumentation, this warm up worked!

There is flexibility as to how you use this warm up. Depending on your instrumentation and student experience you can:

Limit how much of the warm up to use.
If you have younger students and the instrument range is limited, use the first three versions of the progression.
- 1. One whole note per measure: the first note of each blues scale
- 2. Two half notes: the first two notes of each blues scale
- 3. Four quarter notes: the first four notes of each blues scale
By doing so you can achieve the following:
Teach the 12 bar blues form
Expose students to the first four notes of the corespoinsing blues scales
Provides the opportunity to begin a call-and-response sequence with only a few notes.

Students who have been in band at least two years should have the necessary skills for this warm up. In addition to learning to improvise, I have used this exercise to expand their knowledge of the Blues form and how it can be applied in a variety of musical styles. It’s not just for Jazz Bands. Rhythm and Blues, Country, Rock and Roll, and numerous other musical styles utilize the blues form.

It is often the 12 bar form used in this warm up, often with some additional harmonic alterations, like a turn-a-round chord progression before the repeat, or the use of alternate or substitution chords as a turnaround before the repeat.

When selecting charts for your jazz ensembles, choose some that are blues in form. I suggest not only standard swing blues but also swing shuffle, rock or Latin.

As stated earlier, this Warm Up REALLY WORKS!!

I was able to begin rehearsal with ease by just counting off the rhythm section and/or those horn players that were ready.
The students knew the routine and quickly joined in
Learning the Blues Form and the Blues Scales was smooth and effortless.
Students became increasingly more confident and proficient in their improvisational skills.