Boxcar Boogie

4.10 Hear chords away from the score

Study Boxcar Boogie, an original twelve-bar boogie in C. Count its twelve-bar plan: four bars of C, two of F, two of C, then G, F and two of C. Hear the right hand’s quick D sharp–E, a blue third rubbing against the major chord, and learn the left hand’s eight-to-the-bar pattern well enough to play it from memory, away from the score. Twelve Bar Home, an easier blues from Level 3, follows the same plan. At the keyboard: play a twelve-bar blues bass.

Ideas

• The twelve-bar blues
• Blue notes and the blue third
• The blues scale
• Improvising

Theory cards

• The 12-bar blues
• The blue third
• The blues scale

Technique

• C major blues crushed notes, right hand
• C major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves