12-Bar Blues

Growing up in Memphis has been a real treat, for me.

There’s so much blues music here, it’s incredible.

BB King’s restaurant is here, as well as the world-famous Beale Street — where you can go anytime of day or night to hear some great blues music.

If you’re going to play blues, there’s one thing you should definitelyknow — the “12 Bar Blues.”

Basically, the twelve bar blues is this:

I7 chord for four bars IV7 for two bars I7 for two bars V7 for one bar IV7 for one bar I7 for one bar V7 for one bar

Add all the bars (or measures) together and you get twelve “bars.”

So, here’s what that means:

Let’s say you’re in the key of E Major. The tab for the chords you’d play are:

E7 (I7 in the key of E) for 4 bars (four measures of 4/4 time)

—0—
—3—
—1—
—2—
—2—
—0—

A7 (IV7 in the key of E) for two bars

—3—
—2—
—2—
—2—
—X—
—X—

E7 (I7 in the key of E) for 2 bars

—0—
—3—
—1—
—2—
—2—
—0—

B7 (V7 in the key of E) for one bar

—2—
—0—
—2—
—1—
—2—
—X—

A7 (IV7 in the key of E) for one bar

—3—
—2—
—2—
—2—
—X—
—X—

E7 (I7 in the key of E) for one bar

—0—
—3—
—1—
—2—
—2—
—0—

B7 (V7 in the key of E) for one bar

—2—
—0—
—2—
—1—
—2—
—X—

Then, start the whole thing over again.

Now, if you’re going to play a solo over this twelve bar blues, you’d need to knowwhich scale to use.

Because you’re in the key of E Major, you’d use the E Blues Scale.

Here’s that scale in it’s first position in the key of E Major:

————————————-12-15-
——————————-12-15——-
———————-12-14-15————-
—————-12-14———————-
——-12-13-14—————————-
-12-15————————————-

Use this scale to solo over the 12 bar blues rhythm above.

If you’d like to hear a quick example of me playing this progression using theBlues Pentatonic scale, turn your speakers up and go here:

http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=184626&f=HKACKN&ps=13&p=1

Hope that helps get you pointed in the right direction as far as playing blues.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my 6-Part Mini-Course. I hope you’ve gotten some real value out of it!

I wish you all the best with your guitar playing!

Cheers,

Dan Denley

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2006 at 5:01 pm and is filed under AmazingGuitarSecrets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.