[MUSIC] It is my great pleasure to welcome you to a series of seven lectures on the Blues. My name is Dariusz Terefenko and I teach Jazz theory at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. The course is entitled The Blues, Understanding and Performing an American Art Form. [MUSIC] This course is a comprehensive study about the most important musical form in jazz, the blues. The material is presented through a close examination of key theoretical concepts as they relate to the blues. These concepts are then immediately put to practical ends using various exercises, drills, and improvisational activities involving different jazz musicians. Charlie Carr on trumpet, Christian Crawford on trumpet, Luke Norris on the saxophone, Tyrone Allen on the bass and Daniel Sunshine on the drums. In addition to the exploration of the blues, this course in keeping with its overall hands-on pedagogy, surveys a variety of improvisational techniques. As well as it introduces useful strategies of chord realization on the piano using different blues progressions as a point of departure. So in addition to learning about key theoretical concept improvisation techniques and functional keyboard, you will also learn how to interact with a rhythm section and with a pianist. More practical sessions later in the course will feature jazz musicians demonstrating different approaches to improvisation and illustrate ways of interacting with the rhythm section. You'll also be able to play with your own live rhythm section and try various concepts introduced in the course. The main objective of this course is to develop A set of practical skills enabling you to navigate through different blues progressions on your instrument. And to realize them comfortably on the piano, employing a variety of keyboard textures. [MUSIC] Let's begin with just a general description of the contents. The first thing we will do in lecture one is introduce different blues progressions through the prism of historical evolution. To develop strong improvisational skills we must have a command of the basic theoretical concepts. Although this course is not about jazz theory an understanding of key theoretical concepts is necessary to develop and improve your improvisational skills. In lecture two, we will exploit different blues scales, discuss their expressive potential, and talk about jazz rhythm and the importance of jazz articulation. With lecture three, the focus shifts to the piano. Having introduced various piano textures, I will show how to put them to practical ends by demonstrating how to realize different blues progressions on the piano. With four functional keyboard textures, I'm certain that both pianists and known pianists alike will find something useful to help them develop their keyboard skills. Having explored different piano textures and keyboard techniques, lectures four and five will closely examine a half a dozen of blues progressions from lecture one. Because the main goal of this course is to develop solid improvisational skills, the final group of lectures, lecture six and seven, will explore a number of improvisational techniques such as motivic development, improvising with guide tones, using different types of chord arpeggiations. Exploring pentatonic collections, different scalar patterns, and others. And with the help of live rhythm section and other instrumentalists who will demonstrate how to improvise over different blues progressions from earlier lectures. Each session features a carefully selected material, which is presented in a very compact manner and to fully benefit from this course it is extremely important to study the material and complete all written assignments and practical exercises. I hope that you're as excited as I am to embark on this fascinating journey about the blues, a truly American art form. Thank you. [MUSIC]