year 11 composition - george arthur€¦ · • jump jive and wail - the brian setzer orchestra •...

Last Modified: Friday, 6 March 2015

Year 11 Composition 12 Bar Blues Workbook

Name: _____________________________ Class: ___________________

This booklet will guide you through the process of creating your first composition. It is very important that you follow the instructions in each task

carefully, and complete each task, in order, before moving on to the next.

Introduction 12 Bar Blues is a type of composition which includes the following elements:

•A repeating chord progression which is specific to 12 Bar Blues.

•A melody which is often swung and is written in a blues scale.

•A walking bass line.

The best way to begin to understand this style of composition is to listen to some examples.

Listen through several of the examples of 12 Bar Blues below. Try to notice the elements listed above, but also how each composer has made slight variations and used the style in their own way.

Examples of 12 Bar Blues:• Green Onions - Booker T & the MGs • In the Mood - Glen Miller • Jump Jive and Wail - The Brian Setzer Orchestra • 12 Bar Blues - Bruce Robison • Candyman - Christina Aguilera • The Twist - Chubby Checker • Johnny Be Goode; Roll Over Beethoven; Run Rudolph Run -

Chuck Berr • Stupid Cupid - Connie Francis • Crossroads - Cream • At The Hop - Danny and the Juniors • Some Days You Gotta Dance - Dixie Chicks • Mercy - Duffy • Don't Bring Me Down - Electric Light Orchestra

• Blue Suede Shoes; Hound Dog; Merry Christmas Baby - Elvis Prestley

• Wipeout - The Sufaris; Fat Boys • Ice Breaker - The J. Geils Band • Greased Lightnin' - Jeff Conway & John Travolta • Rock & Roll Medley - Jerry Lee Lewis • Tutti Frutti; Good Golly Miss Molly - Little Richard • Stuck in the Middle With You - Stealers Wheel • King Tut - Steve Martin • Pride & Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughn • Hey Santa! - Straight No Chaser • Give Me One Reason - Tracy Chapman • Tush - ZZ Top

The Chord Progression As mentioned above, 12 Bar Blues is centred around a specific, repeating chord progression in a 4/4 time signature. This is outlined below:

So, in C major, this chord progression would look like:

Fill out the table below with a chord progression in any other major key:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

I I or IV I I IV IV I I V IV I I or V

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

C C or F C C F F C C G F C C or G

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12


Practise this Chord Progression Pick a key that you might write your composition in and fill out the chord progression for that key:

Learn how to play the above chord progression on a piano or guitar. You do not have to write for these instruments - this is just so you can see how the progression sounds.

Note: If you don’t play either of these instruments the best key to choose for the piano is C Major and for the Guitar is A Major. You may still use any key for your composition - these are just the easiest if you don’t already play the piano or the guitar.

Choose Your Key Select the major key that you will use for your 12 Bar Blues composition and write it below:

Key: ____________________________________________________ Teacher’s Initial: _______________

Write down your chord progression in your chosen key below:

Set up your Sibelius Score To begin with, we’re just going to correctly set up your Sibelius score so you’re all ready to get on with the composing.

Follow these instructions carefully (your teacher will demonstrate):

1. Start a new score.

2. Use the following instruments (in this order fro top to bottom of score):

a. A melody instrument of your choice (e.g. voilin, flute, sax, trumpet)

b. Piano or Guitar for harmony (chords).

c. Bass Guitar (using notation, not tab) for the bass line.

d. Drum Kit

3. Use the Jazz Inkpen 2 style

4. Select a 4/4 time signature

5. Tick the metronome mark (and leave at 100 at this stage.

6. Select the major key that you chose (above)

7. Use Composition 1 as the title at this stage.

8. Use your name as the composer.

9. Ensure that the copyright reads: Copyright © Insert Your Name Here, 2015

10. Make sure that your score has 12 bars (you’ll add more later).

a. To add more bars, click create | bar | other in the toolbar.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12


b. To delete bars, hold control (windows) or command (mac) and click the first bar to delete (a purple box should appear), then hold shift and click the last bar to delete, then press delete.

11. Finally, enter the chord symbols for your chord progression above the top of the system. In the toolbar, click create | text | special text | chord symbol then click above the first beat of each bar. Type the first chord then press space until you get to the first beat of the second bar, and so on.

The Drums We’re going to start by writing in the drum part. As the structure of this composition is a repeating 12 Bar section, you’ll need to write a drum part that is 12 bars long which you can repeat.

Your teacher will go over some drum writing basics. Write notes here so you’ll remember what to do:

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Drum Due Date: ______________________________________________


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So far you are: [ ] On track [ ] Behind [ ] Ahead

Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint 1x 12 bar drum pattern, including fills. Check your drum pattern with your teacher.

The Bass Next we’re going to work on the bass part. Again, you’ll only need to write a 12 bar progression which can be repeated. Although, if you intend to swap some of the chords (where you have options between I and IV or I and V, you’ll need to make sure you make that change.

Your teacher will go over some bass writing basics. Write some notes here so you’ll remember what to do:

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Staves for examples:

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Bass Due Date: ______________________________________________


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Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint 1x 12 bar bass progression, based on the chords. Check your drum pattern with your teacher.

The Piano/Guitar So in the last two instrumental parts, you haven’t had a whole lot of choice. The or guitar part is where things start to get a little more interesting. You’re still going to need to stick to the chord progression that is dictated by 12 bar blues, however it’s now up to you to make those chords as interesting as possible.

Your teacher will talk to you about taking simple triads and making them a bit more engaging. Here’s a space to write some notes.

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This task is continued on the next page.


Staves for examples:

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Piano/Guitar Due Date: ______________________________________________


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Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint 1x 12 bar piano/guitar progression, which is based on the chord progression but explores interesting additional notes to the basic triads. Check your piano/guitar progression with your teacher.

The Scales What you should have now is something that sounds a bit like a blues backing track. The next step is to begin using appropriate scales create motifs/riffs which will form the building blocks of your melody.

Of course, you could just use the major scale that your chord progression comes from, but this won’t give you such an interesting, ‘bluesey' sound as using some other, more interesting, scales.

Your teacher will help you to fill in the tables below:

Learn to play each of these scales on your instrument and in the key of your composition.

After you’ve learnt to play each of the scales above, it’s a time to start using them to devise a motif/riff which will be the beginning of your melody. There are some different ways you can do this:

• If you play the piano, try playing your chord progression in your left hand and improvising short motifs in your right hand using the scales above.

• Find a partner and ask them to play your chord progression while you improvise using the scales.

•Use Sibelius to play your composition so far as a backing track while you improvise overtop using the scales.

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Pentatonic Scale A 1 2 4 5 6 1

In C…

In your key…

Pentatonic Scale B 1 2 3 5 6 1

In C…

In your key…

‘Minor’ Blues Scale 1 ♭3 4 ♯4 5 ♭7 1

In C…

In your key…

‘Major’ Blues Scale 1 2 ♭3 3 5 6 1

In C…

In your key…


Motif/Riff Your teacher will discuss with you what makes a good or bad melody. Make sure you note down the important points in the table below.

Once you’ve come up with a motif/riff that you would like to use in your composition, write it into your melody instrument part.

Extending your Motif/Riff Your motif/riff will probably only be one to two bars long, so you’ll need to extend it to take up the whole 12 bars using compositional devices.

Compositional devices & Ways to extend your motif/riff

What makes a good melody? What makes a bad melody?

Device Definition Example


After you’ve written in a melody for your first 12-bar sequence (your A section), check with your teacher that it meets the standard.

A Section Due Date: ______________________________________________

Device Definition Example


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Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint 1x 12 melody based on a motif/riff developed from an appropriate scale. Check your first 12 bars with your teacher.

B & C Sections - Imitation and Call & Response The next step is to repeat your first 12-bar sequence twice more, and then to develop each repeat. The second sequence will be called your B section, and your third sequence will be called your C section. Development is the key, because it wouldn’t be very interesting to just hear the same A section three times.

Between each 12-bar section, include a double barline to indicate the new section.

B Section (Imitation)

At this point, you could try adding another instrument (Press I for the instrument menu, then select the instrument you wish to use and click add to score). If you have two melody instruments you can then use imitation. It’s okay for any new instruments added not to play at all in your A section.

Define the following term:

Imitation: ____________________________________________________________________________________________

Other ways to develop ideas in your B section could include:

•Compositional devices (see the table you created in the ‘Extending your Motif/Riff’ section of this workbook).

Your C Section (Call & Response)

You should now have two 12-bar sequences (Your A Section and your B Section). When creating your C section (the third 12-bar sequence), you should focus on using call and response. You may also wish to:

•Moving into a different scale (e.g. if your A and B section used a ‘major’ blues scale, try moving into a minor blues scale.

•Alter some of chords in your chord sequence (but ensure that they’re still following the correct sequence for your key).

Define the following term:

Call & response: ____________________________________________________________________________________________

B & C Sections Due Date: ______________________________________________


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Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint A, B & C section completed (1x 12-bar sequence each) Check these first three sections with your teacher.

Bass Solo After you’ve created your A, B and C sections, you may like to create a Bass Solo. This is optional.

The point of a solo is to show off. So you’ll need to know enough about how to write for the bass in order to write music that can show off the performers skills.

A bass solo is a chance to break out and be more melodic (up until now your bass player has just been outlining a chord). However, it’s still very important that the bass still provides a rhythmic feel.

If this is your first go at writing a bass solo, it’s a good idea to:

• add quavers to your bass line, but try not to use more than four quavers per bar.

• use quavers (or grace notes) to step onto the important beats. This can be done by using a ‘blue’ note on the off-beat and then stepping to a regular note on the strong/accented beat of the bar. Any semitone step will work especially well for this.

• try adding a couple of quaver triplets or even a crotchet triplet somewhere in your solo.

Repeat your A & B Sections To finish your composition, copy and paste your A and B sections back in at the end of your score (they should be the last 24 bars).

So that these repeated A and B sections aren’t boring, we’re going to make some changes to them so that the listener isn’t just hearing the same thing again.

Modulate to a new key

You may choose to modulate both your A and B repeat, or just one.

Your teacher will teach you a bit about modulation. Here’s a space for some notes:

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More than just modulating…

As well as modulating, there are some other simple things that you can do to develop your repeated A and B sections. These include:

•moving your melody up or down an 8ve.

• adding decoration/embellishment.

Repeated A & B Sections Due Date: ______________________________________________

Proofread your Score Proofreading is not something we only do for our writing. It’s important that you allow time to carefully work through your score checking that everything is as it should be.

It’s especially important to check that:

• the name of each instrument is included at the start of the stave (on each page).

• you’ve included a tempo instruction at the beginning.

• you’ve included a dynamic instruction at the start of each instrumental part.

• there aren’t any extra rests hanging out around the place.

• you’ve deleted any extra empty bars at the end of the score.

• there’s a final (double) barline at the end of the piece.

• there’s a double barline between each 12-bar section.

Give your music a Title Your title should be something appropriate, professional and something that communicates the main ideas of the music to the audience. If all else fails, you could always use “Untitled 12-Bar Blues No.1”. Whilst this is preferable to “Bob’s Composition”, it should be a last resort.

This is also a good time to double check that you have included your own name as the composer, and that you have a © notice at the bottom of your first page.


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Your next steps: ___________________________________________________________________

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Checkpoint Repeated A & B sections (including a modulation and decoration) Check your repeated section with your teacher.

Working towards Merit and Excellence To reach merit and excellence, you need to present a polished score, showing you’ve put lots of thought into this composition.

Here’s a list of extra improvements you can make to your work.

• Think about the instruments you’re writing for. Do some research and then ask your teacher if there’s anything special you have to think about for your instruments. You may have to include some special symbols or techniques for them.

•Add in some symbols for articulation. This could include:

• staccato

• legato

• accents

•Make sure that each of your instruments has a dynamic marking when they begin playing.

• It’s also a good idea to change the dynamics of your instruments throughout the composition so that you have some variation and so that the instruments work together and don’t compete for the spotlight.

• You may wish to include < or > hairpins for ‘getting louder’ and ‘getting softer’

• You may find ways to harmonise your melody (but only if it is on an instrument that can play more than one note at a time, or if you can include the harmony part in another instrument).

• Ensure that you have a tempo direction at the start.

•Do you want to change tempo throughout the piece? Or, at the end? You could include instructions for getting faster and getting slower.

•Have you ensured you’ve inverted you chords in the piano/guitar so that they are most appropriate and effective for the player?

• Is there more room for ornamentation? This is the extra, decorative notes between the main, important notes in your melody. These notes aren’t an imperative part of the melody, but they do add a certain something when included. Decoration could include:

Submit your Composition You will need to submit the following things to your teacher for formative assessment on the due date for 1.3A / 2.4A / 3.4A (depending on which NCEA level you are working at). Your teacher will check these and then give you instructions about how to make improvements and submit your final work for summative assessment at the end of the year (after you’ve completed your other composition(s).

For this formative assessment:

• email your Sibelius score to your teacher by _______________________________________________.


year 11 composition - george arthur€¦ · • jump jive and wail - the brian setzer orchestra •...

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