Blues Jam Room
A backing band for the 12-bar blues, right in your browser. Pick a key, a feel and a tempo, then jam with your student. There's no app to install, and you can send the exact settings home with one link.
No sound on an iPhone or iPad? Check the silent switch on the side, or on newer iPads the bell in Control Centre.
Tap a name to take that player out; slide to make them louder or softer. Take the piano out when your student plays the chords, and the bass out when they play a left-hand pattern.
C blues scale
Improvise with these notes over the whole 12 bars. The coral note is home: C.
Space start / stop · ↑ ↓ tempo
Using it in the lesson
Take the piano out of the band. Your student holds the I, IV and V chords for four beats each while the bass and drums keep them honest.
Keep the full band in and hand your student the blues scale above. Start with one note every two beats, then every beat. Wherever they wander, praise the "mistakes".
Take the bass out and let their left hand be the bass player, with a walking bass, a boogie or a shuffle. Switch the feel and ask which pattern suits it best.
Change the key and the chart and the blues scale change with it. Ask first whether the C blues scale still works in F. They'll hear straight away that it doesn't.
Switch the piano rhythm to Charleston: a long chord on 1, then a short one on the & of 2. Let them hear it, then take the piano out so they can play it themselves.
Copy the link and put it in their practice notes. It opens with your key, tempo and band on any phone or laptop.
Want the whole teaching sequence? The Jam Room is the backing band for Teaching the 12 Bar Blues. The course takes you from the first three chords to left-hand trio voicings, step by step.
See the course