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The New Orleans blues progression is definitely worth knowing about if you’re into blues piano, but also because it crops up in lots of American roots music. It’s a variant of the twelve-bar blues that uses the “circle of fifths” rather than following the usual progression.

In this tutorial I take a detailed look at how the New Orleans progression can work on the piano, and at what makes a good blues piano improvisation.

It worth mentioning that this video isn’t really aimed at complete beginners, as I’ll assume that you’re familiar with some basic terminology. If you’re new to improvisation and blues piano, check out some of my earlier videos.

The New Orleans progression is the same as standard twelve-bar until bar eight, where it follows the circle of fifths to eventually resolve back onto the root. This creates a very distinctive sound.

There are plenty of different techniques that you can use to keep the right hand improvisation interesting and varied. Try incorporating trills, runs, crush notes, and other improvisation techniques that I’ve mentioned before. For the first part of this improvisation I stick to the basic blues scale, whereas towards the end I move away from this to use pentatonic scales.

It’s not always necessary to stick rigidly to the beat, either. Playing ‘rubato’ or ‘tempo rubato’ (which means ‘stolen time’) means being free and easy with timing, by playing some bars faster and some slower. This creates an expressive effect, and is common in slow blues and jazz piano.

It’s worth remembering that improvisation (especially in blues and jazz) is about much more than the notes you play: rhythm, method, and approach all influence whether your improvisation is effective.

If you enjoyed this video you might also be interested in my book, How to Really Play the Piano, which is a great beginners’ guide to improvisation and blues piano. You might also enjoy some of my other videos, and my website www.billspianopages.com