The Red Thread: 12 Bar Blues

Lesson 1: Intro to 12 Bar Blues, with a contemporary twist

The 12 Bar Blues form is ubiquitous in Jazz, R&B, Rock and Roll, and Americana music across the 20th and 21st centuries. Blues is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the 12-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues rhythm shuffles and/or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm, form, and groove, and is a pervasive sound and feel throughout Blues and Country. 

The 12-bar blues as an exercise is a natural starting point to aurally, theoretically, kinesthetically, diatonically, and historically explore a sandbox developed over generations for lyrical and instrumental improvisation. While this is not exactly a piece in and of itself, within the exploration of the 12-bar blues is also the key to unlocking a pervasive, cyclical harmonic pattern that shows up in all kinds of 20th and 21st century music.

To explore this form in the classroom, this lesson is presented in D major pentatonic blues. **Why in D instead of C? Not only will we be using an unnamed but very popular and recognizable backing track for this lesson that is pitched in D, but D pentatonic also creates crossovers for beginning strings!

The classic, historical progression advances in 4/4 time as four bars of the tonic (I) chord, then two bars of the subdominant (IV) chord, then two bars of the tonic. The final four bars consist of one bar of the dominant (V) chord, one bar of the subdominant, and two final chords of the tonic, totaling 12 bars total, to be repeated for the duration of the composition In this example, the 12 bars notated in lead sheet symbols look like this:

| D | D | D | D |

| G | G | D | D |

| A | G | D | D |

Process:

Locking in the groove and harmonic progression is the first and most crucial step for any piece of 12 bar blues. I like to accomplish this away from the instruments. I introduce this harmonic progression chart:

Simply marching in place through the 12 bars of 4 beats each is a simple and accessible entry point. I do this away from recorded music. To a clicking metronome or a steady hand drum beat, as a class we follow along to the chart calling out the tonic pitches of each chord, and practice following along while gently marching on the steady beat of each bar until there is consensus. This marching motion will be important for the more complex body percussion later, as well as for attaining a common 4-on-the-floor bass drum pattern that gives a forward momentum to the progression, which the students will use on instruments later. 

Once I can visually assess that my students can track the progression in time through marching, I put on an instrumental loop of a popular contemporary song that is in many of our students’ (and everyone else’s) ears since its debut in February 2024. While the origin of this looping track shall remain nameless for the purposes of this introductory lesson, many of your students may identify and appreciate the timely inclusion in the music room, and the source track is a fascinating talking point and cultural phenomena that is allotted room for discussion later in this lesson series. For our students, the color coded progression serves as an aural and visual tracking aid through the progression:

We will repeat the aural tracking of the progression while marching and vocally chanting the chord names. This sounds like:

D-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee

G-ee-ee-ee, G-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee

A-ay-ay-ay, G-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee, D-ee-ee-ee

Now they are ready for differentiated body percussion. The marching becomes the D chord. I use the phrase “See if you can find the small change” and start clapping on the G and A chords instead of marching, and give them time to identify the change, and to mirror and master the switch. Once this is locked in, I say “Small change” again and change the A chord to 4 beats of snapping, giving the same process time to adopt the change. Now, they have split the progression across leveled body percussion, with the tonic down low in their marching feet, the IV in the middle level with their clapping hands, and the V up high in their snapping fingers. 

To additionally prep for following along with this progression, using boomwackers, poly spots, and lap diagrams with mallets are great options to get that physical internalization of the groove. 

The 12 Bar Blues chart above is mapped with the corresponding colors of D, G, and A boomwackers. Have your students play along to the instrumental chorus with boomwackers, matching the color they are playing with the color of the chord in the chart. Do your students need to stand up, stretch, and move a little bit? Use the corresponding poly spot colors and place them left to right: orange, green/blue, purple. Have them step from color to color in time with the recording’s progression. By arranging them in this order, they are also internalizing the left-to-right structure of the notation and the tone bars they will be playing on their instruments. Are you moving onto sticking but do not have enough instruments? Those taking a turn away from the instruments can still practice. Using mallets or lummi sticks, and these lap diagrams, they can play along on the floor while waiting for their turn back on the instruments.

With this prep work in place, transferring to the instruments should be readily accessible. At this point, they can play along to the progression of the chorus and have a great time really getting into the irresistible groove of 12 Bar Blues.

With the realities of limited barred instruments in my classroom, I actually like to set up a rotating set of stations with all of the prep scaffolds. I have my first station on the barred instruments, my second station stepping along to the poly spots, a third station on lap diagrams, and a fourth station working with boomwackers. I divide my class into 4 groups, play the instrumental loop through once at each station, and then we rotate. This keeps the students engaged in multiple applications of the groove and the harmonic progression at once, with no one waiting for a turn on the instruments.

By the end of this lesson, our students will have achieved the form and harmonic function of the 12 Bar Blues. While this is exciting and at tremendous amount of fun, this is only the beginning of the elemental music journey through the 12 Bar Blues. In the next lesson, we will add layers of multi-genre influences into the progression, and explore more of the Red Thread that this progression weaves through the familiar sounds of American pop, rock, jazz, R&B, LatinX, and hip-hop music.

Stay tuned for the next installment of how to access contemporary popular music using the Red Thread of 12 Bar Blues. Up next: multi-genre influences and how to integrate them, improvisation, and discussion on Americana genre.

Justine Marie Sullivan is an elemental music and movement educator from Denver, Colorado. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Music Education, Performance, and Composition, as well as Orff-Schulwerk Certification. She splits her professional career between instructing in classroom and studio settings ranging from kindergarten through undergraduate music education courses, and in marketing/social media/design projects for local and national music education professional development and advocacy groups, including ACEMM.