Simpedia

Jane H., Australia

Just thought I would share this from a couple of my teenage boy students who do music at our local high school.

To help with improvisation do the rhythm of Baa Baa Black Sheep and be bold as generally people won’t know if you make a mistake!! They follow how we do blues improv one step or a chord at a time. You could use any song but watch copyright!! ie I come from the land down under/kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.

The riff /intro/ underline bass line of Sunshine of your Love by Cream (Santana /Eric Clapton ) is the blue scale. Which one student noted when playing, consequently that is how he figures out the blues scale in any key. If you don’t know the song you can hear part on I tunes.

Ian C., Australia

Another well-known riff that uses the blues scale is the intro to “Smoke On The Water” – every teenage (especially) boy I’ve taught seems to love playing that!

And if you listen to the intro of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know”, you will hear a (very slightly) modified version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” played on xylophone…!