Lesson 4 - 12 Bar Blues

Learning the 12 Bar Blues...
In order to learn this new "blues progression" you will need to add two new chords to your chord vocabulary... check it out.

Lesson 4 will begin learning two more chords. The first of the two will be this E7 chord. Notice that it is eeeeasy. Just play your E chord and then take off the third finger.




The second chord you will learn in this lesson is the B7 chord. The B7 is a chord that will utilize all four fingers on your left hand. I tell my students that the B7 is the "skip-skip-behind-chord". If you place your pinky first on the 1st string/second fret... and then skip a string and place your 3rd finger/second fret... and then skip a string and put your 2nd finger/2nd fret...this leads you to the behind portion of the shape and that is to place your 1st finger on the 4th string/1st fret. The primary bass note is the ''B" in the 5th string. Do not strike the 6th string while playing the B7.



Now, when you have these two chords down... We can look to learn the 12 Bar Blues. We will play this version of the 12 Bar Blues in the key of E. There will be four chords that will be used, they are E,E7,A and B7. Make sure that you know all four chords before trying to play this 12 bar blues progression.

E / / / / E/ / / / E/ / / / E7/ / / /
A/ / / / A/ / / / E/ / / / E/ / / /
B7/ / / / A/ / / / E/ / / / B7/ / / /

If you notice that there are 12 seperate measures (bars) with 4 beats per measure. Again, with playing any chord progression, make sure that the tempo you chose is consistant and the transitions you make from chord to chord will not break the rhythmic flow of the song. 12 bar blues are awesome, because once you learn the progression, you will notice this progression played in many style of music and then you will recognize the progression and be able to play. The next lesson will deal with playing lead guitar with the 12 bar blues...stay tuned.

Now when you think you're ready...

Click on the audio player below... and let's jam.