How to Easily Teach Children to Play the Blues | Musical Play

It is important to use a variety of musical genres in your Musical Play – so, here is how we incorporate the fun rhythmic sound of the blues.

In our Musical Play classes we sing echo songs using the blues scale or aspects of the blues with children from babies upwards. The children all respond to the use of the minor bluesy tunes with catchy rhythms. The more we sing elements of this blues scale, the more children start to start to sing it in their own play.

Today were playing with our hoops and I heard a four year old boy sing to his mother: “Watch out for my hoop, I’m bowling to you”. She sang straight back to him echoing his tune “I’m watching and I’m ready to catch your hoop”. The boy’s singing was rhythmic, tuneful and very bluesy.  He was using a pattern based on the notes C and E flat (the first two notes on the left of the keyboard with the red stars in the photo).

Here is the photo of a keyboard with the notes of the Blues Scale outlined with stars:

Children love to explore the keyboard, and we help our four and five year olds find the blues scale by using these stars for each note of the blues scale. Children might start by playing their own composition  1 3 4 3 1,1,1, or starting up on the highest note with the star and work their way down the blues scale playing every note with a star to the bottom note middle C.

Try adding fun stickers onto the notes of the Blue Scale on your keyboard – at home or in an education centre – and watch as the children immerse themselves into a bluesy Musical Play.