Learn the 12 bar blues from Griff Hamlin
The 12 bar blues is the most basic of blues progressions known to man, but it’s also the most widely used in all blues music.
The 12 Bar blues gets it’s name from the fact that it is a 12 bar pattern repeated over and over. The pattern is pre-determined and depending on what key you are playing in determines which chords you’re going to play for the 12 bar pattern.
In this article I’m going to explain what the 12 bar blues pattern looks like and give you an example of what chords you’d play for a 12 bar blues progression in the key of G.
The 12 Bar Blues Progressions
The 12 bar blues are usually looked at as a pattern of numbers. That pattern looks like this:
1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 4 – 4 – 1 – 1 – 5 – 4 – 1 – 5
The numbers in the pattern represent the number placement of a particular note taken from the scale of the key you want to play the 12 bar blues in.
Let’s do an example.
If you are interested in playing the 12 bar blues in the Key of G you’d want to first look at the G major scale which looks like this.
G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G
If we number the notes in that scale from left to right we get G = 1, A = 2, B = 3, C = 4, D = 5 and so on.
If we grab the notes we need for the 12 bar blues pattern we’re going to end up with G, C and D which are the first, fourth and fifth notes respectively.
Playing a 12 Bar Blues Progression
So we have the pattern and now we have the notes. Of course we’re not just going to play it as notes, we want to play chords for this progression. So we plug in the notes from the scale into our pattern and end up with this:
G – G – G – G – C – C – G – G – D – C – G – D
Generally the easiest way to play a progression like this is to use power chord formations. So for each of the chords you’ll need to use your first, third and fourth fingers. For this example we’ll play the chords like this:
G Chord – First finger on 3rd fret of the low E, third finger on 5th fret of the A and interchange placing the fourth finger on the 7th fret of the A string.
C Chord – First finger on 3rd fret of the A, third finger on 5th fret of the D and interchange placing the fourth finger on the 7th fret of the D string.
D Chord – First finger on 5rd fret of the low D, third finger on 7th fret of the G and interchange placing the fourth finger on the 9th fret of the G string.
Grab your guitar and give these chord shapes a try. What I mean by interchange the fourth finger on the 7th or 9th fret of a given string is: Pluck down twice on let’s say the G power chord formation, then place your fourth finger on the 7th fret of the A string and pluck down twice, while leaving your third finger on the 5th fret of the A string. Next remove your fourth finger and pluck down twice again on the regular G power chord formation. You’ll get the feel for what it’s supposed to sound like.
With this information you can now create a 12 bar blues chord progression in just about any key you can think of. All you need is the pattern I gave you above and the scale for the given key you want to play in and you’re all set.
If you’re interested in taking your blues guitar playing to a new level I suggest you check out both online and DVD Blues guitar lessons at LearningTheBlues.com.
You could also visit The Guitar Classroom and get you online blues guitar lessons
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