Blues Guitar Lesson - 12 Bar Blues Guitar

The blues means a lot of things to a different people. There are fingerstyle blues, Delta blues, Chicago blues and on and on. One thing they all have in common is a basic structure. Most blues are based on a 12 bar structure, hence the term 12 bar blues.

There are other blues forms like the 8 bar blues, 16 bar blues, etc, but they are not as common as the 12 bar blues. There are also major and minor blues. In this lesson I will stick to a discussion of the major blues guitar scales.

In this basic blues guitar lesson I would like to look at the basic 12 bar blues and a couple of variations.

Typically a 12 bar blues consists of three chords referred to as the 1, 4 and 5 chords of a particular key. That’s getting into a bit of music theory and not really something I want to get into deeply at the moment. It is however, something that you might hear when listening to a discus-s ion about the blues.

In brief the numbers refer to note positions in a major scale. The C major scale has the notes:

As you can see the notes in the 1, 4 and 5 positions are C, F, and G so the chords in a 12 bar blues in the key of C would be C, F and G. Another thing about the chords in a major blues is that are typically dominant 7th chords. Again this is more of a theory discussion but basically it means you play C7, F7 and G7 instead of just plain old C, F and G.

Here is a chart of the 1, 4 and 5 chords in some typical blues keys for guitar.

Once you learn the basic form of the 12 bar blues and know the 1, 4 and 5 chords in different keys, it becomes very easy to play the blues in these different keys. That’s why the blues is a staple at jam sessions. The blues is also the basis for thousands of rock songs. It’s a must learn for anyone that’s even halfway serious about learning how to play guitar.

Let’s take a look the typical 12 bar blues form

12 Bar Blues In A

Download .mp3 file for audio example 1 ( Right-click Save Target as... )

Here are the chords used in audio example 1

Audio example 2 uses the same chord progression but uses the following guitar barre chords instead of the chords above.

Download .mp3 file for audio example 2 ( Right-click Save Target as... )

I personally like the sound of the barre chords a bit better. You can have more control over the sound by muting the strings between each strum. The open position chords are useful in some situations however. The choice is yours dictated by experience and the sound you want to hear.

Download Guitar Success instantly here...