ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 focuses on embellishing the 12-bar blues form. The first important observation is how jazz musicians use the lowered 3rd in the key of the song, known as the blue 3rd, as a chord tone over IVdom7 chords. This technique was also used by Great American Songbook composers like George Gershwin in his song “Somebody Loves Me.” The author introduces two simple blues melodies, called “Upper Guide Tone Blues” and the “Lower Guide Tone Blues,” which are used as the foundation for several improvisation exercises that use the melodic embellishment techniques learned throughout the previous chapters of the book. Also discussed is the complexity in choosing upper neighbors. The chapter includes a composition exercise where the task is to compose a simple 12-bar blues melody which is then embellished with the same exercises from the rest of the book. The chapter concludes by suggesting advanced studies where the reader completes the earlier exercises in all 12 keys.
