[philbarr]

This is a great kind of thing for getting people into music. There's a piano in my local pub and when people say they "can't play piano" I'll play a 2-5-1 in C and tell them to hit any of the white notes. People love that they can make up their own tunes having never played before.

[aldanor]

And then you show them the black blues note...

[kqr]

I was miserable for most of my piano lessons (I learned to sheet read well – I become a fairly adept piano-playing robot – but I never sort of "figured out" music more generally.) That said, one lesson my teacher played a basic blues chord progression and told me to hit anything on the blues G scale however I wanted. That was one of the most fun times I've had making music ever. Well, the only time that has been fun, actually.

[jefftk]

If you want to do this with someone who doesn't play, the experienced person can play in Eb and then the black notes make an Eb blues scale.

[yayitswei]

I do this too! D dorian works great as well.

[Ylpertnodi]

The pedant in me is screaming -

ii V I

[WWLink]

Here I was doing barre chords on the 2nd fret, 5th fret, and 1st fret on my guitar and wondering why it didn't sound good. ;)