How To Play Guitar
Learn the 12 Bar Blues Guitar Chord Progression
The fantastic thing about the twelve bar blues pattern is so many amazing songs use it and yet it is so easy to learn. You could be strumming along on your acoustic in a matter of minutes to Chuck Berry (Johny B Goode), Gary Moore (Walking by Myself), Led Zeppelin (Rock and Roll) or The Beatles (Let it be).
You might think that 12 bar blues songs would all end up sounding the same, but just looking at the examples above is proof otherwise. It’s not the sequence, it’s what goes into each bar that makes the difference.
The 12 Bar Blues Pattern
The basic 12 bar blues pattern only uses 3 chords. They are normally written as I, IV, and V.
If you have no clue of music theory, the ‘I’ chord is the main guitar chord in the song (for the key of A, this would be A), the ‘IV’ chord is the chord that is five frets higher than the main chord if you use a barre (in key of A, this is D), and the ‘V’ chord is seven frets higher if you use a barre (for the key of A, this is E).
The basic pattern for the 12 bars in A is as follows.
September 4, 2008 at 2:01 pm | Learn Guitar Chords | No comment