Blue Steps

Written for the Method by Musalea

Key: C major
Style: Modern, jazz and dance
Level: Level 1
Roughly: RCM 1 · ABRSM 1 · Trinity 1 · Henle 1
Lesson: 1.11 Colour a melody with E flat
Musicianship: 1.11 Major or minor
Focus: Let E flat colour the C scale while the left hand holds I and V fifths.

What its lesson teaches

1.11 Colour a melody with E flat

Study Blue Steps, an original piece in C (not a twelve-bar blues). Compare E flat and E natural by sound and by notation. The left hand holds open fifths on I and V (C–G, G–D) and the fourth-and-fifth F–C of IV in bars 3 and 6: learn each change alone. Play the opening right-hand C–D–E flat–D over the held C, keep the written straight quarters rather than swinging them, then join the phrase and invent a short answering phrase.

Ideas: Blue notes and the blue third
Theory cards: The blue note
Intervals from a 2nd to an octave
Technique: C major five-finger pattern, hands separately

Edition and licence

Musalea

The other lesson pieces of Level 1

Melody in C major, ABC du piano No. 14, Félix Le Couppey
The Chase (Die Jagd), Op. 117 No. 15, Cornelius Gurlitt
Study in C major, Op. 190 No. 22, Louis Köhler
Practical Method for Beginners, Op. 599 No. 13, Carl Czerny
Melody in F major, Op. 190 No. 27, Louis Köhler
Allegretto grazioso, Op. 117 No. 6, Cornelius Gurlitt
Song Tune in C major, ZT 694, Henry Purcell
Allegretto, Op. 1 No. 5, Alexander Reinagle
Practical Method for Beginners, Op. 599 No. 14, Carl Czerny
Practical Method for Beginners, Op. 599 No. 12, Carl Czerny
Garden Gate, written for the Method

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