12 Bar Blues

The ‘12 bar blues’ is the most common blues progression and with it consisting of just 12 bars and only three chords it is also one of the easiest. Below is an example of a 12 bar blues:

As you can see we have our 12 bars, each one containing either the numbers One, Four or Five, these numbers relate to what chord will be played in that bar.

To work out which chords to play we must first pick a key, for arguments sake lets choose ‘C’, this is now our chord One. To find our chord Four simply count up four letter names in the alphabet starting with ‘C’, this gives us ‘F’ making ‘F’ our chord Four, to get chord Five do the same but go one letter further giving us ‘G’.

Below is a table containing the most common blues keys and their related chords:

To get more of a ‘bluesy’ sound try using Dominant 7 chords in the place of the majors, as demonstrated below:

Now we know are chords and are 12 bar blues let’s put it all together in a song.

Before You Accuse Me – Credence Clearwater Revival

‘Before you accuse me’ is a typical 12 bar blues in the key of ‘E’ originally recorded by Bo Diddley in 1957 and has since become a blues standard.

The strum pattern is the same throughout the first eleven bars and is demonstrated below:

Watch out for the ties on the second and third beats of the bar, to keep the strumming smooth continue the eight note (up & down) strumming motion but do not connect with the strings.

On the eighth repeat of the song bars eleven and twelve change creating an ending to the piece. The chord in bar eleven is a movable ‘D7’ chord shape, the piece then ends with ‘E7’.

For those of you that want a bit more of a challenge here is the intro and solos.

Intro

The intro is a mixure of the ‘E’ major and ‘E’ minor pentatonic scales, watch out for the triplets throughout and the ties in bar three.

Solo One

Solo One kicks off with the bottom part of a ‘C7’ movable chord shape which changes to an ‘E7’ in bar four. Bars five to seven use chord tones applying an ‘Aadd9’ and ‘Amaj9’ tonality.

Bars nine and ten show a Freddie king inspired major pentatonic lick which is topped off with a classic blues turnaround in bars eleven and twelve.

Solo Two

Solo Two starts in a similar fashion to the intro using the ‘E’ minor pentatonic scale and also in bar four using the movable ‘D7’ shape. Bars five and six introduce an ‘Aadd9’ chord then return back to ‘E’ minor pentatonic licks which follow the chord changes this is all topped off with the same turnaround as in solo 1.

I hope this article has been of interest or at the very least gives you a great song to learn. In the next installment I will look at the ‘Blues shuffle’ through songs such as ‘Crossroads’ by Cream and ‘No Particular Place to go’ by Chuck Berry.

This particular lesson is focusing on a typical jazz blues progression in the key “A”. Most people who are just getting into the blues know that there is a 3 chord combination that is traditional with the blues. It’s called a I – IV-V progression (Roman Numerals are usually used with explaining chord progressions). In the key of “A”, we would use the chords A, D, and E. To figure this out, we would think of an “A” major scale and an A major chord would be the “I” chord. As you build chords in the scale you get: I = A, ii = Bm, iii = C#m, IV = D, V = E7, vi = F#m, vii = G#m7b5. Each one of these chords can be extended, as long as the integrity of the chord remains [example: E = E7]. A typical set of chords for a jazz blues is our set below. As you listen to the mp3 provided below, you will notice that it will “sound” of the blues, but the new chords have put a twist on the texture and feel of the sound.

There are standard classical theoretical rules that can be bent with jazz and blues (such as changing major chords to dominant 7th chords) . Our progression contains: A6 = I , D9 = dominant II, F#7#9 = dominant III chord (notice the #9 is the same as a b3, thus this type of chord is substituted for minor chords and doesn’t ruin the chord progression sound), Bm7 = ii, and E7#9 = V. A lot of this theory is confusing for some of you, so don’t worry about it. Just play the exercise, because it’s fun! For those of you that have some general theory background, I thought this would be interesting. Jazz theory is very insightful, and there are lots of good books and articles available on the subject. I highly recommend it.

Back to playing…The bass line generally will out lines the chords, walk a scale that matches the chord, and sometimes will add a few chromatic passages (1/2 step notes that are not part of any scale or chord) to lead to the next chord. The trick to making this sound good is to “punch” the chords out with your index, middle, and ring fingers, and to focus on making the bass sound smooth. By doing this, you create a feeling of two instruments (bass guitar + rhythm guitar). It takes a while to get it, but it’s somewhat addictive once you got it.

Provided below is the music, tab, and a chord diagram sheet to help out with fingerings. I would recommend taking it a chord at a time, check to see how the bass line relates to the chord, and get the feel of moving from one to the other.

Your Left (picking) Hand:
1. Play the bass line with your thumb.
2. Keep your index, middle, and ring fingers together and pluck in a unison motion (as if they were glued together).

For a quicktime video of me playing it, email me and I will be happy to email you one. Left and Right hands. Sometimes seeing it helps a lot.
Here is an mp3 of me playing the Walking Bass Blues Rhythm – Key of A – (click here)

( I played it a little slow, in order for you to follow the chart)

Have fun with it!
Enjoy! … Peter Simms
My email: peter@petersimms.com

Many people start playing guitar with visions of hour-long jams where the music just keeps on flowing. Unfortunately for quite a few of these players, they end up thinking that soloing or improvising isn’t for them. They believe that it’s some kind of magic only a few gifted people possess. Over the course of a few articles, I hope to take away this unwanted feeling by giving a step-by-step guide on how to improvise. In this first article we’ll start with the very basics, that is, the 12-bar blues and the pentatonic scale.

12-bar blues

For the rest of this article, we’ll be using the concept of the 12-bar blues and playing it in the key of A major. In case you didn’t know, the 12-bar blues is a chord progression of you guessed it, 12 bars or measures. It consists of three chords:

So when we play in the key of A major, we would use these chords:

While, at least for the rest of this article, you don’t really need to be able to play such a progression, it is quite important to have a feel for how it sounds. You can read more about the 12-bar blues in David’s article Before You Accuse Me.

Pentatonic Minor scale.

One of the most-used scales in blues and rock music is the pentatonic scale, and we’ll be using this very scale for most of this small series of articles. The pentatonic minor scale is basically a simplified version of the natural minor scale. Take a look at the following table, showing the natural minor and pentatonic minor scales in the key of A:

So in other words, the A minor pentatonic scale consists of the following notes: A, C, D, E, G. The easiest way to learning where all these notes are is by dividing the neck into small areas, called ‘boxes’. To keep it simple, we’ll just introduce the first box this article, and introduce others in future articles. This first box starts at the 5 th fret of the 6 th string, and goes all the way up to the 8 th fret of the 1 st string, as shown below.

Before we’ll do anything else, we must make sure we know this box inside out, and the rest of this article contains a bunch of exercises to practice this scale.

The first one is the most boring one, but there really is no way around it. Grab yourself a metronome, set it to a slow tempo, and play the following tab repeatedly. Fret each note at the 5 th fret with your index finger, each note at the 6 th fret with your middle finger, each note at the 7 th fret with your ring-finger and each note at the 8 th fret with your pinky. Make sure each note rings clearly. When you are comfortable playing the scale, increase the tempo of the metronome slightly and start again.

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

When you notice you fingers can keep on playing the scale without you having to look at the tab it is time for the next exercise. This one involves string skipping, which simply means not always playing the string adjacent to the one you’re on. Initially, this can be tricky:

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

Once again, start at a slow tempo and gradually increase it. When you can play this tab comfortably, move on to the next one.

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

Okay, so now you probably now where the notes of the scale are in this box, but do you also know the names of each note you play? If not, then this needs lot be learned. Look back to the table above, and notice that there are three red ‘A’ notes. Since this is in the key of A, we call this A note the “root” note. Before anything else, it is absolutely vital you always know where the root notes are. In our example in the key of A major, you will find them at the following locations on your fretboard:

• 5 th fret of the 6 th string.
• 7 th fret of the 4 th string
• 5 th fret of the 1 st string.

Now go back and play the first tab again, but every time you reach a root note you:

• A) Stop playing.
• B) Listen closely to the sound of the note
• C) Say “root – A” to yourself.
• D) Continue with the tab.

Do this a few times and then try both of the other exercises using the same procedure. When you are comfortable with this and can find the three root notes accurately and fast, it is time to learn the other notes. Make sure you not only say the name of the note, but also the number that belongs to it. Practice this in the same way as you practiced the root note, and in the following order:

• 5 th E
• 3 rd C
• 7 th G
• 4 th D

Congratulations! You now know all the notes of the pentatonic minor scale in A, and because you learned the numbers that belonged to it, you will later find it just as easy to find notes when playing in other keys.

The minor blues scale

“What, another scale?” you might be thinking now. Don’t worry! The blues scale is pretty much a pentatonic minor scale with just one tiny note added. This is the flatted fifth (designated “bV”) and is called the “blue note.” As you will later find out, this note can really add that bluesy touch to what you are playing. See the table below to see where this blue note can be found in the first box of the A-minor pentatonic scale.

Now just play the three exercises again, playing the blue notes before you would otherwise play an E note. Don’t forget to use the same procedure to remember its name, saying “blue note – Eb” to yourself when you play one.

Final exercise

The last thing we’ll do in this article might seem very unfair, but it really isn’t just here to frustrate you (no, really…). We’ll end this article by giving three MIDI backing tracks, and the goal is to simply play over it using the A-minor blues scale. You can play any of the tabs given above, or just play something else, it really doesn’t matter. The goal is to get a better feeling of how a blues-bar sounds. Just relax, play and listen to yourself. Try to hear what does and what doesn’t sound very good, and don’t worry if it doesn’t sound superb yet. We’ve barely started the journey into the land of improvisation, so just sit back and enjoy!

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

And for those who are curious, our next article will deal with various techniques like bending and hammer-ons, and will bring some sort of structure to how you can improvise. Plus, we’ll introduce a new box.

The point of this article is to show you that there is a whole other style out there. A style where a TS-9 Tubescreamer isn’t the Holy Grail of tone and where Voodoo Chile isn’t considered a standard. It’s acoustic blues, represented by such fine players as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, and many others. So unplug your guitar, put down your pick, and let’s get started.

Form and Introduction

A lot of acoustic blues are in open tunings. As such, many lessons are the same way. But what I’ll be doing in this lesson is staying in standard tuning throughout. That way, you don’t need to be retuning your guitar every five minutes just to show your friends what you learned today. Besides, as the great bluesman David ‘Honeboy’ Edwards once said, “real bluesmen don’t use open tunings.”

Let’s first take a look at the blues form. We’ll be following a typical 12-bar pattern throughout, using the lyrics from Muddy Waters’ You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had. This isn’t actually an acoustic song, nor is it played in the key of E, but when did I promise to teach you the authentic version of anything? But here’s how it goes:

E7 Had a pretty little girl. I lose my baby, boys ain’t that sad? A7 I once had a pretty girl. I lose my baby, boys ain’t that sad? B7 You know, you can’t spend what you ain’t got. A7 Can’t lose what you ain’t never had. (turnaround)

And here are the chord shapes we’ll be using:

Easy enough, right? We’ll get back to these in a minute. But for now, let’s jump in to this song with the introduction. This figure will also be the same one we’ll use as the turnaround at the end of each verse, so pay attention.

It’s actually a lot easier than it looks. For the descending line, just make that first chord form with your ring finger on the fifth fret of the A string, middle on the fourth fret of the G string, and index finger on the third fret of the B string. Then just slide that shape down one fret at a time until you’re done. For the E triad (G#-B-E) at the end, I brush my picking hand’s index finger across the strings. I do the same thing for the B7 chord. When you’re brushing, it may sound kind sloppy, that’s okay.

Verse

In a typical blues, the first line of the verse is sung over two measures of an E7 chord, and then there are two more bars of E7 before you move onto the next line. But another variation you can use is to go to A7 after the first measure, and then return to E7 as usual. I’ve heard this called a “quick-change” progression. But pretty much it would go like this:

E7 I had a pretty little girl. A7 I lose my baby, boys ain’t that sad.

So what do we play for these chords? You certainly don’t want to just strum them. Instead, what you want to do is imply the chords by working around them. I’ll try to show what I mean here:

When playing this, it’s very clear as to what the chords are even though you ever actually play one in its entirety. And aren’t those two measures far more interesting than if you’d just played the standard chords? You’ll notice there’s a nice bass line throughout the entire thing, as well as some things of harmonic interest going on up in the treble strings.

In the first measure, the bass strings are just doing quarter notes with an E octave. The little walk-up to A is on the “and” of beat 4. Once you go to the A, it’s a very familiar boogie bass line that you’ve probably heard countless times.

As for the work on the treble strings, you’ll notice that you can pretty much make the E7 shape and you’ll have all the notes under your fingers. Just hammer on the G string and give the B a little bend when appropriate, and you’ve got it. When I get to the A, I prefer to have my index finger fret the D, G, and B strings at the second fret, and grab the G note on the E string with my ring finger. For the bass line, I just kind of twist my hand a bit and fret the whole thing with my middle finger. If you find this too awkward, you could just hit an open high E string and play the bass line with any of your free fingers.

After going through this and singing, you’ve got two bars to play a fill in. I like to slide up to the ninth fret and do a fill higher up in the neck to break things up.

This is really just the A7 shape we used before, moved up seven frets to fit the E7 chord. Hit the E on the 12th fret with your pinky and really lay into this riff.

For the vocal line over A7, I play the same thing we did in the second measure. Just do it twice and you’ve got it.

But now we need another fill before going to the B7 chord. This next fill is a classic. Everyone from Robert Johnson to Creedence Clearwater Revival have used this riff:

And that should cover the first eight bars. Now we’ll move onto the B7 chord and the third line of the vocals. We’ll keep this part a little simpler. Just grab a hold of the B7 chord I already showed you. After a measure of that, you’ll walk down to the A7 chord. The move on this chord is the same as that chordal fill for E7 we already went over, just a different rhythm.

I put that last slide in to show where to begin the turnaround. Remember that figure we used in the introduction? Hit the low E note on the downbeat and just play that again.

And for your reference, here are the song’s lyrics in their entirety:

Once had a pretty little girl. I lose my baby, boys ain’t that sad? Once had a pretty little girl. I lose my baby, boys ain’t that sad? You can’t spend what you ain’t got, can’t lose some little girl you ain’t never had.

I had money in the bank. I got busted, people ain’t that bad? I had money in the bank. I got busted, people ain’t that bad? You can’t spend what you ain’t got, can’t lose what you ain’t never had.

(solo)

I had a nice house. But it burned down, people ain’t that sad? I had a nice house. But it burned down, people ain’t that sad? You can’t spend what you ain’t got, can’t lose what you ain’t never had. You know you can’t spend what you ain’t got. Can’t lose what you ain’t never had.

Conclusion

And that about wraps it up. Rather than restate this verbatim every time you play it, try to make your own variations. Just try to keep the bassline going when you’re making your own fills. You don’t have to be able to set your watch to it, but there should be some semblance of rhythm there to keep it going. I’ve found that stomping your feet really goes a long way towards filling space. And if you’re performing something like this in a live setting, you could even go so far as to put a microphone near your foot. This will give you a nice bed on which you can do some more intricate things with your guitar or your voice. Just remember that your voice should still be the most important thing going…

If you listen to any amount of blues, you will notice one or two little touches that really make something swing, and we’re going to look at one of those elements in this lesson. I did toy with the idea of introducing Marching Bass in this lesson, but decided against it after I started drafting the words; it’s quite chunky, so we’ll look at it next time.

Copyright Notice: The attached files form an original composition by the author; and may be downloaded, printed and distributed freely.

Right, then, down to business – The End

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. What is that little bit of any blues melody that really gets you fired up and wanting more? It’s the End, or more particularly, it’s the last two bars of the twelve, and we call them the Turnaround. In these two bars, we can either bring the whole piece to a satisfactory conclusion or kick the piece off into another twelve bars. Classical theorists will know that I’m talking about messing around with a Perfect Cadence here. What am I babbling on about? Let’s have a look at some music

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Those of you who are of a nervous disposition have probably gone weak at the knees by now. “What has he done here?” you are asking. “What are all those brackets about? Is there life after lunch? And, why has he written 3’s all over the place?”

At this point, I am going to recommend that if you haven’t read two other lessons on this site:

1. Before You Accuse Me
2. (Going To) Kansas City

Before You Accuse Me talks about Triplets and the Blues Shuffle and (Going To) Kansas City talks about the Turnaround.

Why have I written 3’s all over the place? Because we’re using Triplets, that’s why. Have you ever noticed how a lot of blues playing feels like it’s built round a count of three? This is how it’s done – what we do when we play Triplets is play three notes in the space normally taken up by two; which is proof positive that three into two will go if you squeeze it.

The music plays at 60 bpm – here’s a MP3 which will give you the idea (clickety-click)

Now let’s look at what you’re actually going to do.

You’ll notice that each beat in the first bar plays an open 6th string – this should cause no problems; we played that with the thumb in the last lesson, and I’d like you to play those four notes with the thumb again here. Play it a few times

To play the triplet patterns – you’re going to get sneaky. Put your 4th finger on the 4th fret of the first string. Put your third finger on the 4th fret of the 3rd string. Why the 3rd and 4th fingers? You’ll find out at the end of the next bar. You’re going to play those three notes using the index and middle fingers of your picking hand using a simple “i-m-i” pattern – play the 3rd string with the index finger, the first string with the middle finger and then the third string with the index finger again. You’re going to use that pattern for each of those three sets of triplets. How does this look in practice? Like this:

You’ll see that I’ve sketched out the whole bar. Which fingers should you use on your fretting hand? To play the pattern in the third beat of the bar, slide the 3rd and 4th fingers down to the third fret of the 1st and 3rd strings, and in the 4th beat slide them down again to the second fret. This is not easy – your fingers will come off the strings, you’ll be somewhere near one of the frets and it will sound dead, and these things are all to be expected. Don’t worry – take it gently and it does come with practice. Use this to replace bar 11 in Study in Blue.

Let’s look at the final bar. No problems with those quavers in the opening beat – three open strings. Play the bottom string with your thumb and the top string with either your middle or your ring finger (I’ve played it both ways to make sure it can be done) and then use the thumb to play the open 5th string. Play our famous “Blue note” in the second beat using the thumb and fret the note with the 1st finger of your fretting hand. In the third beat, play the 5th string using the thumb and the 2nd finger of your fretting hand to fret the note. OK so far? Leave the 2nd finger where it is, and let that note ring until the end of the bar. This is where you find the benefit of using the 3rd and 4th fingers in the previous bar – bang the 4th finger back down on the 2nd fret of the top string, and the 3rd finger down on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string and play that “i-m-i” pattern again. It looks like this:

Again, play the MP3 so that you can hear exactly what is being done, and then replace your existing 12th bar with what we’ve done here.

Whilst developing this lesson, a suggestion was made that on the last beat of the last bar you could substitute a B7 chord (x2120x or x21202) for the triplets. This sounds really good, too.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

And there you have it. A simple turnaround that just sounds so good. If you replace the 3rd and 4th beats of the last bar with a big fat “E Major” chord then you’ll find it sounds good as an ending. The Classical Theorists are asking “Where’s the perfect cadence then?” – it’s the B7 in the 3rd and 4th beats of our new bar 12 resolving to the E Major tonic in the first beat of the next bar. If we finish on a chord of E in the 3rd beat, then we’re created an Imperfect Cadence.

Comments and feedback should be addressed to alan.green@argonet.co.uk

When analyzing the make up of some of the jazz-blues idioms that were illustrated in the previous column, one will quickly notice that there are more than just notes from the basic (minor) blues scale being used. Below, you can review the definition of this most common version of this scale:

Here is the one shape most popular among guitarists:

Here, you have two and a half octaves; below, you will find all shapes for the whole range of the guitar neck in a specific arrangement. A lot of players never get past these notes for improvising, having often learned them as well as the mere pentatonic minor scales early on in their development on the guitar. Let’s conduct an experiment:

Record a play-a-long track of yourself vamping a C7 chord. On playback use the C-minor blues scale (for example the shape displayed above with the lowest root note on the 8th fret) for playing along. This will most likely be familiar territory for you!?

Now, move that same shape down three half-steps and play the A-minor blues scale. How do you like it? It might sound a bit Country & Western to you; in fact, you are playing the C-major blues scale! So if this doesn’t turn your crank, don’t be discouraged until you try the following:

Above is one position of both minor (left) and major blues scales. The hollow dots represent the blue notes, without which you would get the mere pentatonic scales respectively. Play both these scales mixed up over your C7 track: Here is the key for that jazzy blues sound we have been after.

First, get familiar with the back and forth and the combination of these two tools. Then learn more of the blues idioms from before; or just analyze and understand the ones you already got down.

In conlusion, you can draw from the complete illustration of this minor/major relationship below. I would recommend spending some time with the play-along track in each of these positions; and, if you really like this sound, try to apply this to songs and playing situations you are comfortable with already…more on this in the next installment in this series.

Also in this Series

• Blues Lines in Jazz I
• Blues Lines in Jazz III

Click here to hear the MP3.

Click here to hear the MIDI file.

You’ll find the Power Tab file (for Windows users only) here.

(More info on the free Power Tab at http://power-tab.net)

We’ve actually used three different Mixolydian scales here: the A Mixolydian, the D Mixolydian, and the E Mixolydian. Notice how the notes in each Mixolydian scale contain the arpeggios, or chord tones, for chords in the A blues. For example, the first measure would be an A7, if you were playing chords.

So, the arpeggio notes for A7 are A, C#, E, and G. Now look at the notes in the Mixolydian scale for that measure: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G. All the arpeggio notes are here on the strong beats, which are beats one and four. The non-chord tones are on the weak beats. These non-chord tones or notes are called passing tones.

Noticing whether a note falls on the strong or the weak beats is important, because it deeply affects the music.

When you make riffs with the A Mixolydian scale, you want to make sure the strong beats tend to use the notes A, C#, E, and G — the tones of the A7 chord. If the passing tones from the A Mixolydian scale fall on the strong beats, your playing won’t sound like the blues.

Where Does the Mixolydian Scale Come from?

Once you recognize that the A Mixolydian scale is really just an A7 arpeggio with some passing tones installed between the chord tones, you can rephrase your question to this: what scale do I find the A7 chord in? Answer: the D major scale. Compare the D major scale to the A Mixolydian scale:

Notes in D major: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#
Notes in A Mixolydian: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G

Notice that the notes in each of these groups are the same. The difference is that each group starts and ends on a different note.

A Mixolydian scale has the same notes as a major scale. The only difference is you’re starting from the fifth degree of the scale instead of the first.

The Mixolydian scale is an example of a mode. Note how close this term is to the term “mood.” That’s not a coincidence: Different modes produce different moods. The Mixolydian mode is a good way for inducing a bluesey kind of mood, which you saw and heard in this exercise.

Other Places to use Mixolydian

You don’t have to be restricted to using the Mixolydian just for blues playing. You can generally use a Mixolydian scale any place where you can use the dominant 7th chord that’s based on the Mixolydian.

For example, let’s say you’re playing this mini-progression: A, G, and D. All of these chords are in the key of D major. What dominant 7th chord goes with the key of D major? Yes, A7. So you can play an A Mixolydian scale on top of this progression.

If you’re instead working with the chords E, D, and A, which are all in the key of A major, you can use notes from the E7 chord, or E Mixolydian, for playing over the changes. You can do this because E7 is the dominant 7 chord in A major, and E Mixolydian is the mode or scale that emphasizes the E7 chord tones.

To stick with the analogy of jazz as a language, with dialects and slang, blues becomes important again when facing those mechanical aspects of bebop or improv per se, since it is one of the traditions that jazz evolved out of. Blues is very much part of many a listener’s background, trained or not, and, therefore, a good way to connect to any type of ear.

I love listening to a blazing bebop solo by George Benson knowing that this is exactly his approach: He will put a funky touch on any flurry of bebop runs and patterns by resolving to or contrasting those with a light-fingered blues double-stop as the one that follows:

Here’s another little blues thing from the same solo:

This is preceded by a cool II-V-I phrase and, in combination, looks like this:

Below are a few more fun lines in various keys. The first one illustrated here in the key of G:

Another one in G-blues; try this one first by using only down strokes:

Back to F-blues:

This same one can be looped with a great effect:

Here’s is another way of looping this idea:

I can only recommend that you learn your favorites (or all of these) in all positions of any key. It is a tough but really rewarding habit to get into. Check out how this works on the previous example:

Make sure to be using alternate picking on all these examples. The phrasing and swing feel will be much more controllable this way! Also, try the two looping versions in all those positions as well; some positions are harder than others but a great way of evening out your skills all over the fretboard.

Well, on we go with the fingerings in all the positions:

In the next installment of this series on “Blues lines in Jazz” we will focus on the background on these lines. It will enable us to come up with our own renditions and understand new lines quicker and more profoundly.

Also in this Series

• Blues Lines in Jazz II
• Blues Lines in Jazz III

Yes, it’s going really well.

Until, that is, Aunt Lisa and Uncle Darren turn up unannounced.

“Oh, your mum said you’d got a guitar. Give us a tune, then” says your favourite Aunt.

Blind panic sets in, but you mumble something about being just a beginner and launch into the best performance of The Grand Old Duke Of York and Good King Wenslesslosslass, Good Kind Wencl, Good King Woos, Silent Night that you can muster.

“Lovely” says Auntie.

Uncle Darren is completely underwhelmed, but talks to you about your instrument and even has a go – he tried to learn when he was young, he says, but “couldn’t get on with it”

So, you’ve just given one of your first performances to someone who doesn’t live in the same house as you do, and you’re writhing with embarrassment. You wish you could have played something that would have really knocked them dead. Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?

Copyright Notice: The attached files form an original composition by the author; and may be downloaded, printed and distributed freely.

At this stage, some of you will be thinking “Uh-oh. Original Composition? Hey, we’ve seen this guy on the Forum Pages – he’s a Classical Player. What have we just let ourselves in for?” Don’t worry, this isn’t a Classical Study, and I promise I’ll be gentle.

OK, put down your plectrum. I’d like to introduce you to your fingers.

On your fretting hand:

• The Index finger is 1,
• The Middle finger is 2,
• The Ring finger is 3
• The pinky is 4.

That’s not too horrible.

Your playing hand strangely seems to have turned Spanish.

The thumb is now “Pulgar”, and the fingers, in order, are Indice, Medio, Anular and Chico – collectively p-i-m-a-c for short. Remember these – you’re going to be seeing a lot of them.

Let’s look at the music. This Study is called Study in Blue and it’s a simple twelve-bar Blues. First of all, I want you to take some things on trust. This Study is in the Key of E Major. The Primary Chords in that Key are E, A and B7 (don’t worry if you don’t know how to finger them) and by using these three chords we can achieve good harmony with every note in the E Major scale.

We’re going to be using a special scale for playing Blues, called the E Minor Pentatonic. Hang on, you say, I thought you said we were in E Major? And so we are, but we’re going to achieve that distinctive Blues sound by tinkering with some of the notes, particularly the 3rd and 7th notes of the Major scale.

Down to business. Look at the first bar/ measure of the Study. Ah, yes, “Measure” is the modern term, and “Bar” is the Classical definition – they mean the same thing. You’ll see that the open 6th string (E) is played on beats 1, 3 and 4. Try this now – use your thumb (p) to play those three notes on the open string – 1, rest, 3, 4. Let the notes ring, and play it a few more times.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Now let’s look at the other notes in that first bar. On beat 2, you’ll see we play the open 1st string (E’), and I’d like you to play that with your middle finger (m). Playing these four notes should be quite easy at the moment, so play it through a few times – thumb on the 6th string, middle finger on the 1st p-m-p-p p-m-p-p.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

What have got on the 3rd beat of that bar? We’ve got two quavers/ eighth notes in there, that’s what.

Quavers? “We need an interpreter”, you say. A Quaver is the Classical term for an Eighth Note.

The first of those two notes wants to be played at the same time as the bass note. We’re going to play those quavers with our index and middle fingers (i-m). Practice this a few times, and then use the thumb to play the bass note at the same time as you play the 2nd string with the index finger. That’s actually our first bar done, and you will find you’ve been using this finger action:

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

On to the second bar.

A definition: A Crotchet is the Classical name for a Quarter Note.

There are no surprises here; simple crotchets/ quarter notes for the first three beats. Play the open strings on beat 1 using your thumb and index finger. Use your middle finger to play the second string on beat 2, and then your thumb and index finger to play the two open strings on beat 3. The fourth beat is quavers/ eighth notes again – play them using m-i this time. Once you put this bar together you have a finger action of:

Play this through a few times.

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Sound good? I liked it so much I bought the Company. Sorry, got carried away there – I like it so much we’re going to play that two bar pattern twice, and that will be the first four bars of our twelve-bar Blues done. Go get a coffee.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Have a look at bars 5 and 6. The top line is the same, but the bass note is different. Our finger action is going to be the same as bars 1 and 2, except that the thumb will be playing the open 5th string (A). Try it a few times until you get the hang of it, and then……. add it to the first four bars. Does that sound good, or what? Onto bars 7 and 8. These are bars 1 and 2 repeated and should cause you no further problems. Try playing all eight bars together a few times.

So, what have we done? We’ve used a simple two-bar finger pattern four times and the only change throughout was the use of the 5th string in bars 5 and 6. Make sure you’re comfortable with these eight bars before going any further. Who said Blues had to be complicated?

Me, that’s who. In bar 9, we get busy. Play the bass notes with the thumb as normal. The top line starts with a quaver/ eighth note rest on the first beat, and the first note of the top line is played at 1&. The six notes of that top line should be played m-i-m-i-m-i, and I would like you to practice that for the next fifteen minutes. When we add back the bass notes, we get a finger action for that bar/ measure of:

Take some time to practice this, as the index finger of your fretting hand (1) should hold the bass note (B) throughout the first 3 beats, and the ring finger (3) should fret the 2nd string at the 3rd fret on the two occasions it is necessary.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Bar 10 is the same as bar 9, but the index finger of the fretting hand (1) is not needed. You should still use the ring finger (3) to finger the 2nd string at the 3rd fret. Play these two bars together a few times, and then add them to the first eight bars.

Onto bar 11. Ooh! Funny symbols! Panic not. Remember we talked about tinkering with the 3rd note of the scale? That’s all we’ve done here. In the 2nd beat of bar 11 we play the G# from a standard E Major scale, in the 3rd beat we play a G natural from the E Minor pentatonic, and in beat 4 we flatten that G once more to give us Gb, which is usually written as F#. Use the thumb to play the bass notes as before, and the middle finger to play the top line, so your finger action looks like this:

And so to bar 12. There will be times when you need to do some fancy fingering in the bass line, but this is not one of those times. Use the thumb to play all four bass notes, the index finger to play the open 1st string in beat 1, and the middle finger to play the fretted 1st string in beat 4. Your finger action should look like this:

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Now, if you play bars 11 and 12 for a while, and then add them to the first ten….Result!

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

I want you to look at the bass note on the 2nd beat of bar 12. You’ll hear the “blue note” mentioned from time to time, and this is what it means – it’s the sharpened 4th/ flattened 5th of the Major scale. Don’t overdo it with this note when soloing. It’s hugely dissonant (being a tritone from the root – you don’t need to understand this) but it’s good fun to use in careful doses.

You’ll notice that our bass line used the notes E, A and B, and that we said the Primary Chords in the Key of E Major were E, A and B7. Harmony doesn’t come much simpler.

One final thing. The thumb on the fretting hand. You’ll hear a lot of discussion about the Classical Position for the thumb and the Baseball Grip. I’m going to confess that I use both, and my advice to you is to use whatever thumb position gets you through the exercise with the notes sounding clearly. I have played the Study completely in Classical Position, and completely in Baseball Grip, and I suspect you will find that a mixture of the two will be best.

So, there you have all twelve bars. It’s time to put them all together. Once you can play the whole Study from start to finish, set your metronome to something slow (the Study and the MP3 files play at 60 bpm) and don’t play it any faster until you can play it smoothly at that speed. Remember, Blues is an art-form defined by interpretation, not by speed. Enjoy.

Feedback and questions to: alan.green@argonet.co.uk

I wanted something Bluesey. I wanted to play music and not a monotonous, “mah-ching up and down the fretboard” (Say with a John Cleese accent) lesson as boring as cardboard. I couldn’t find a lesson like this, so I wrote one.

What specifically is it?

Blues Triad Mastery is two examples of ii-V-I based chord progressions that illustrate each inversion of three of the four fundamental triad types, using a melody soaked in the Blues. Here’s a summary of the features of BTM:

• Blues-based melody
• Musical context: Two-five-one progressions
• Triads in all inversions
• Frets from 0 to 12, strings high E through D covered
• Two types of 251 progressions: target tone and scale-style
• Major, minor, diminished triads covered

How does it help me?

Here are some specific benefits that BTM provides:

• Builds facility with triads in all inversions.
• Shows you how to make triad practice engaging with the Blues.
• Provides the basis for understanding more complex chords.
• Grows your ears by conditioning you to the major, minor, and diminished triads.
• Enhances skill in playing the essential ii-V7-I progression.

Who’s it for?

Blues Triad Mastery is intended to help beginning to intermediate level guitarists. But, even advanced guitarists might enjoy and benefit from BTM.

Here are the two progressions. The by-string approach is first.

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F major, ascending and descending, string 1

Here’s a progression using the focus note or target note approach.

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F String 1, focus note A

Discussion: The Blues Triad Mastery Approach

The progressions in Blues Triad Mastery are approached in two ways, so you’ll be less likely to get stuck knowing just one way to play them. Even so, after you master these progressions, you’ll want to write your own triad exercises using new approaches for greater flexibility.

First, we move along the high E string, playing each inversion of the major triad, ascending and descending. Next, we flow melodically, in the same musical phrase, from the major triad to the minor one.

We do the same with the minor triad as we did with the major: playing each inversion, ascending and descending the string. After the minor, we flow into the diminished triad. Last, we flow from the diminished back into the major triad.

Note that we’re covering only one string here. You’d want to maximize your triad skills by transposing the by-string approach to strings B, G, and D. See the checklist later in this article for a summary of all the triad progressions you’ll want to create and practice.

The second way we approach triad skill building is as follows:

We focus on a particular note, which I call a target note; play a major triad with that target note in the top voice of the chord; flow into the minor chord, whose top note will be as close to the major chord’s target note as possible; flow from the minor into the diminished, again staying close to the target note; last, flow back into the major chord, into its target note.

Note that we’re only using focus note A here. You’d want to transpose the focus note progression given here to make progressions for each note in the F major triad: F, A, and C.

Why the Blues? Why ii-V-I?

In both approaches, a ii-V-I progression is used, and so is the Blues. Why a ii-V-I? It occurs in so many pieces of music, you might almost think you were hearing noise if you heard a tune without a ii-V-I progression in it.

In other words, it’s so common that you have to know it to achieve mastery of music. The ii-V-I is kind of like the eggs in a cake. You *could* make the cake without the eggs, but I’m not coming to your house to eat it.

Note that the actual progression used is not a ii-V-I, but is related to ii-V-I. We’re using a ii-vii-I in these progressions. The V has been swapped out for the vii because the V is a major triad; we already have a major triad in the progression, via the I chord.

We’d rather work another triad type, such as the diminished, to avoid using only two of the four triad types. With the ii-vii-I, we still get a ii-V7-I feeling, and we get three of the four triad types.

You need one more triad type…

So, where’s the fourth triad type? *What* is the fourth triad type? It’s the augmented triad, which does not occur naturally in the major scale, though it does occur in the Melodic Minor scale. I wanted to emphasize the major scale here because of its relatively greater popularity in Western music.

Also, learning the augmented chord is a piece of cake once you’ve learned the other triad shapes. Play the A augmented triad — notes A, C#, and F — through each inversion, with the top note on the high E string, and you’ll see what I mean. Who says playing guitar is hard?

Why the Blues?

Why inject the Blues into Blues Triad Mastery? This one is tough to answer because it seems so natural to include the Blues in any kind of practice routine. Going back to the food analogy, the Blues is the butter in “bread and butter.” Or, maybe it’s the bread. I don’t know.

In either case, any music exercise becomes engaging the moment you add the Blues to it. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: the Blues is how you get maximum emotional output of music from minimal physical effort.

Also, knowing where the Blue notes are in *anything* you play is just being practical. Popular music still has a lot of Blues in it. So, if you want to play jazz, rock, bluegrass, or pop, learn as much Blues as you can. More specifically, learn the “Blues potential” of those things you play that don’t yet have the Blues in them: scales, chords, etc.

Discussion: Why triads?

Why bother learning triads? What benefits do you get from learning chords with just three notes, when you could learn bigger, more colorful chords? There are lots of reasons to learn triads.

First, they make learning more complex chords easier. Visualizing a three note shape is easier than a four or five note shape, and visualizing the note *names* in a triad is also easier compared to chords with more than three notes.

And, if you haven’t discovered this yet, you will learn that visualizing the many shapes that music takes on the fretboard is a crucial factor in making music well with the guitar. Learning triads help you achieve this visualization.

Don’t trust just one source to learn the importance of triads. In guru William Leavitt’s vital guitar reference, Modern Guitar Method, Volumes 1, 2 and 3, Leavitt gives triad exercises even in the advanced volumes 2 and 3.

This includes 8 separate exercises just in volume 2. That fact *alone* would make knowing triads seem important to me. On WholeNote.com, another important resource for guitarists, about 200 results come back when you enter “triads” in their search engine.

Triads are also important to know when you’re reading slash chord notation. Once you know triad shapes well, these shapes will come readily to your mind’s eye when you read “Cm/B” or a similar slash chord in sheet music.

To learn more about slash chords, check out this article from the Guitar Noise archives: Slash Chords. Also, check out the Slash and Burn article on MaximumMusician.com.

For more triad chops:

Use the following checklists to show you which other strings and focus notes you’ll want to create your own Blues triad progressions for. You can create your own progressions by transposing the two in this lesson.

Here’s a checklist summary for all the triad progressions you’ll want to learn using the by-string approach.

• F Major
  • String E
  • String B
  • String G
  • String D

Here’s the checklist for all the triad progressions you’ll want to play using the target note approach:

• F Major
• E string
  • Note F
  • Note A
  • Note C
• B string
  • Note F
  • Note A
  • Note C
• G string
  • Note F
  • Note A
  • Note C
• D string
  • Note F
  • Note A
  • Note C

Have fun with Blues Triad Mastery. And pick up more free guitar info by subscribing to the tasty Guitar Study newsletter.

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I have chosen to use the old blues standard (Going To) Kansas City for this lesson because I want to demonstrate these techniques on a song that you probably have heard but are not overly familiar with. This way you won’t have Eric Clapton’s riff running through your heads when we come up with some simple leads and fills. Deal?

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of these songs. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Turning Around

For the intent of this lesson, which is to make this as painless a process as possible, we will play this song in the key of E. So we will be using our standard twelve bar blues shuffle (and do feel free to review that in the last two “Easy Songs for Beginners” pieces – Before You Accuse Me and Roll Over Beethoven).

In the simplest possible term, a “turnaround” is a complicated way of saying “we’re going to end this verse/chorus/whatever in such a matter that starting the next verse will sound even more natural than it does.” Okay, so that’s not a very simple explanation. How about this, “we’re going to go from “I” to “V” so that it’ll sound really cool when we start the next verse on “I” again?” So if we take the last four bars of our typical twelve bar blues pattern (and in these examples we will be using the key of E as well):

we would simply replace the last measure of “I” with a measure of “V.” Like so:

That’s really easy, both in terms of idea and execution. But like almost anything else in music, it is simply the tip of the iceberg. The “standard” turnaround in blues has become (slightly) more complex than this. Instead of measure twelve being four counts of “V,” we start out with one count of “I,” one count of “IV” and end with the final two counts on “V.” An added wrinkle to this is to go from IV to V chromatically, that is to throw in the half step between these two chords. Here’s how both of these would look in the key of E:

And of course, this is also just the start of what you can do. Often times, the eleventh measure will consist of a chromatic descent based on the “I” chord. This chromatic play will end on “I” just in time to go to “IV” and then chromatically again up to “V.” This is probably the most used turnaround – it is easier to do than you think and it will make you sound soooooo cool:

In case you’re interested, this one is actually based on a “D” shaped chord and we will be covering not only how it works but all sorts of other things we can do with it sometime later this spring.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

The Simplest Possible Lead/Fills Scale

We’re not going to get too much into the theory behind this for now, simply for the reason that getting into it is part of what took me so long in getting this installment online. Paul may forgive me many things but a thirty page lesson is neither “easy” nor “for beginners.”

Blues is a favorite of many guitarists because it easily lends itself to, shall we say, flashier playing than simple strumming. Most blues songs fall into what we describe as “call and response” styles, meaning that a line is sung, then guitar plays something funky and then the voice sings again and then the guitar and they playfully chase each other over the alternating lines of the song. This “style” is older than the blues and can be heard in the music of virtually every culture this planet has ever played host to.

What we have come to think of as the blues actually started out as simple songs done by a single singer/guitarist. And that’s on an acoustic guitar, mind you – no electric models in those days. Since we have already discussed how much effort can go into simply strumming and playing at the same time, think of how daunting it must appear to sing, strum and play a lead of sorts all by one’s lonesome!

But if you take the time to learn and study a few scales and riffs (musical phrases often derived from said scales) it can not only be very easy but very entertaining.

Now, there are many many scales available to the guitarist. And don’t be fooled into thinking that all scales have seven or eight notes. Remember the definition of scales we used in The Musical Genome Project: “A scale is the sequence of notes used from a specific note to the next occurrence of that same note.” Nowhere in that definition is a requisite number of notes. We assume that it must at least be three, since we call the space between two notes an “interval.” And if you read my piece last year, Scales Within Scales, you know that there are scales with fewer than seven notes.

One of these scales is the Pentatonic scale. As one might suspect it has five notes in it. And, yes, of course, there are all sorts of arguments as to which five notes. We are going to avoid these headaches by discussing the “Blues Minor Pentatonic Scale” which is used so much in standard blues songs.

The Blues Minor Pentatonic Scale consists of the root, the minor third, the fourth, the fifth and the minor seventh. So in the key of E, this would mean E, G, A, B and D. If we were to plot out these notes on our fretboard in the easiest posible way, using as many open strings as we could, this is what it would look like:

You can now see why I like playing blues in the key of E – it leads to all sorts of easy fills by means of simply hammering on or pulling off string on the second or third frets. Suffice it to say, many blues players rely on the minor pentatonic scale from which to develop their leads and fills – going from chords or a shuffle while singing to a fill or lead requires little to no repositioning along the fretboard.

Here are some easy riffs for both the E and A chords.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Note that since you are only on the “V” for one measure, you don’t really need to concern yourself with playing any fills over that chord.

Finally Finale

Blues songs have this tendency to go on seemingly forever (maybe turnarounds have something to do with that, no?) so it’s also important to have something that screams out “this song is over already!!!”

Yes, it’s needless to point out that there are countless ways of ending a piece. As we read in Five To One (or “Home Home Again”), the “V to I” cadence still seems to be the best at saying, “We’re done now.” Here is a V – I cadence tacked on to first half of the turnaround we learned earlier:

Another popular ending is to form chords to go along with a descending chromatic line. Here is one I particularly like when playing in the key of E:

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

You can see that all of these chords are part of the I – IV – V blues pattern. Even the Am chord forms a nice plagal cadence back to E before finally resolving with an authentic cadence (B7 to E7). And you can hear that when you play simply these particular strings that you have given yourself a descending melody line that is also quite pleasing.

Okay, let’s take this stuff and throw it all together and see how it works. Remember to take it slowly as you have to. Getting the timing down is important and being fast won’t matter if your playing isn’t clean.

Something to note: for the sake of not driving myself crazy writing this out, I didn’t put the “triplet” sign over any of the shuffle rhythm. Just take it as a given that when you see a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note that this is a shorthand for the shuffle rhythm, the same one we used in Before You Accuse Me.

You will also notice that I changed the rhythm around in some places to give it a more playful feel. The dramatic strumming in the second verse adds a bit of tension and variety and this is something else that you have undoubtedly heard many many times before. Sometimes not playing is just as important as playing but that’s a subject for another time…

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Next time out (and believe me, there will hopefully not be a time lapse like this until Paul goes on sabbatical again…) we learn about adding an “alternating bassline” to a song. And then the on following song we’ll start with some very simple fingerpicking.

As always, please feel free to write in with any questions, comments, concerns or even a song, riff or lead you’d like to see covered in a future “Songs For Beginners” article. You can either drop off a note at the Guitar Forums or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until next time…

Peace

So let’s get to it, shall we?

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of these songs. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Location, Location, Location

Last time we learned Before You Accuse Me, and in the process we learned how to do a “blues shuffle.” And we learned this in the key of A. Now, most of the books I have ever seen tend to start people out in the key of E, but as I hinted, there is a method to my madness.

We also learned the standard form of “twelve bar blues” songs and how it all revolves around the I, IV and V chords of whatever key in which you chose to play. Are we all set with the form? Good. Now let’s look at the three shuffles used in the key of A.

Now, if you remember, we defined the shuffle as being the root note of the chord in conjunction with the fifth and sixth note of that same chord. And, looking at these three shuffles, we have exactly that. The A chord shuffle is the A note along with the E (fifth) and the F# (sixth). Likewise the D shuffle consists of the D note being played with the A and B notes and the E shuffle being played with the B and the C#. And you might also notice that the root note is always the lower note of the two being played.

Alright then, let’s try to make an intuitive leap. Suppose we had a twelve bar blues song in the key of C. Well, we could probably figure out that the easiest C note to use would be on the third fret of the A string. We might also decide that, even though we could play the G and A (the fifth and sixth of C, right?) on the G string, we’d prefer to stick to the shape we’ve grown to know and love and play our C shuffle (or “I” shuffle) like this:

(And a quick note here: this is going to hurt if you’re not used to stretching your fingers. Use your index finger to anchor the bass note, your ring finger on the fifth and your pinky on the sixth. But if you just keep trying it for a few minutes each time you pick up your guitar you’ll be surprised how quickly you work your way through it.) (This is actually one of those rare times when learning on an electric might be easier – but hang in there!)

Using the same bit of logic, we can figure out our IV and V (F and G chords) shuffles, can we not? Sure, we can:

The lesson I’m trying to get across to you here is this: anytime you start a twelve bar blues shuffle with the bass note of the I chord on the A string (on whichever appropriate fret), the IV will always be immediately above it (on the D string) and the V will be immediately below. Word of honor. Pick a key. How about blues in Eb? Here you go:

This works, of course, because of the way the guitar is tuned. Think about it. Your D note (on the open D string) will always be tuned a fourth higher than the A note and the E note below the A is always going to be the fifth. So as long as you stay on the same frets and keep the “I” of your progression on the A string, this will always hold true.

Now, if you’re still with me, we’ll go and take a quick look at the key of E. Since we already know the chords involved will be E (I), A (IV) and B (V), and since we also know the shuffles for the E and A chords (from our “blues in A” pieces, such as “Before You Accuse Me,” if nothing else), all we have to do is find our B shuffle. Most books, however, will not teach you a B shuffle; they will instead encourage you to use a B7 chord instead. And this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Done this way, the last four measures of a twelve bar blues song in E would look like this:

The reasoning behind learning it this is actually very kind hearted. The B major is a relatively difficult chord for beginners while the B7 is definitely do-able, especially if one is swithcing from an E chord.

But since the shuffle does not rely on the full chord, merely two notes, and since we are up to that challenge, let’s again use our brains a little. We already know that going from A to B (from IV to V) is a full step – the equivalent of two frets. So why don’t we simply shift our A chord shuffle up two frets? Piece of cake, right? So here are the shuffles we would use for “blues in E:”

And now, once again, I want you to think about this. If I could teach you any one thing about playing the guitar it would be this: virtually anything you learn concerning a technique or a style or a riff or a chord progression can, with the slightest amount of thought, be applied to another song, style, or whatever. So we look at this and hopefully you see the pattern. If we play twelve bar blues (I, IV, V) where the bass note of I is on the low E (6th) string, then IV will always be directly above it on the A string and to get to V will require us to simply slide IV up two frets. So, instead of playing our A shuffle as we did earlier, it is now possible to play it this way:

And as silly as this is going to sound, you are now ready to rock…

From Blues To Rock

Most early rock and roll songs were derived straight from traditional blues progressions. Many songs today still are. Chuck Berry was one of the best known pioneers in this area and many of his songs went on to inspire the great British rockers of the early sixties. We’re going to learn his classic, Roll Over Beethoven, done in the key of C. I’ve charted this out using (again) the same basic shuffle that we’ve been using the last two sessions (and don’t worry, we’ll soon enough be learning harder ones)(one thing at a time, you know – I already feel like I give you all too much to digest at once!) but I want you to notice the important difference between blues and early rock. Our rhythm has changed! Instead of a laid back shuffle based on a triplet, we have a hard driving shuffle powered by straight eighth notes:

Of course, the first thing that you’ll figure out is that it’s really easy to play this rhythm very fast! But do me a favor, okay? Make certain you keep the timing steady. You speed will come before you’re ready for it, trust me. Okay, are you set? Then let’s go!

And Don’t Forget The “Easy Way…”

If you’ve got smallish hands like me, this style of shuffling if going to take a little bit of time before you get your fingers to stretch the way you want them to. There’s no real way (aside from knowing a good surgeon, I guess) of developing your hands outside of just doing it. But don’t overdo! And remember that you’ve got lots of ways to play in this style without killing your hands. You’ve got your brain. First off, it’s good to realize that the frets are spaced closer together as you get higher up the fretboard. So whenever you can play up there, as we did with this song, then go for it.

But also remember your friend the capo. If you can master the shuffle in A, or the one in E (using the B7 instead of the B shuffle), your capo will enable you to play songs in this style in whatever key you want. Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me. Put your capo on the third fret and play this song with the shuffle fingering (but the straight eighth note rock rhythm) that we used last time out with Before You Accuse Me. And if that’s not enough to get you to open your eyes, now try playing Roll Over Beethoven using the E shuffle chords and fingering we figured out earlier (substituting the B7 for the B) but have your capo on the eighth fret. As I’ve been telling you all along, your brain, working together with a little theory, can help you to overcome a lot when it comes to playing the guitar.

Next time out we’ll go back to the blues once more. As I mentioned, we’ll expand our shuffle a bit and we’ll also have some fun by throwing in some simple “call and response” fills derived from simple blues scales.

As always, please feel free to write in with any questions, comments, concerns or even a song, riff or lead you’d like to see covered in a future “Songs For Beginners” article. You can either drop off a note at the Guitar Forums page or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until next week…

Peace

So, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way:

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of these songs. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Once you start playing the guitar – learning the chords, figuring out how to strum, you now, the usual things- you also start learning music theory. “Learning” is perhaps not the right word. The theory is there all around you, but whether or not you decide to explore it and examine it and do anything with it tends to be a personal matter. For the most part, many guitarists do know theory, they simply do not know how to explain what they know. And yes, I guess that’s just a polite way of saying that they don’t know that they know it!

So let me say that this might be a good time for us to brush up on some basic music theory. If you haven’t already (or recently) done so, let me suggest that you read an old article or two – either Theory Without Tears or both The Musical Genome Project and The Power of Three before we start this lesson, if for no other reason than to get us all on the same page concerning terms.

Building The Blues

All set? Okay, believe it or not, we now have to learn a few more basic terms, specifically the bar (not to be confused with a barre chord) or measure.

As I’m sure you’re all aware of, music is counted of in terms of beats. In order to (a) create a universally understood language and (b) make it much easier to write out, musical notation and TAB, too, are written in such a way to divide the music into bars or measures. These are indicated by a vertical line running through the staff (in notation) or TAB lines.

The vast majority of music that we know is written in terms of four beats per measure. Yes, this is not an absolute, but in the case of the blues, you can pretty much count on it (no pun intended).

Some of you may also recall from other articles that I written that many songs tend to be written in terms of “phrases,” a phrase either being a line of lyric or a chord progression. Standard blues songs are written in three phrases of four measures each, which is what we call, appropriately enough, “twelve bar blues.” And you may not know it, but more than 80% of the blues falls into this category. And most of the rest are simple variations.

And you also may not know it, but twelve bar blues follows a distinctive pattern. Or falls into one of two patterns, I should say. We’re going to start out thinking in pure theory terms and then carry that theory into specific examples.

Pick a key, any major key. Your standard blues song will consist of only three chords in that particualr key: the “I” (which ever key you picked), the IV and the V. Let’s look at the two typical twelve bar blues patterns:

Take a minute and go over this. Let’s just look at the first pattern. You strum whatever chord you’re starting with (this is almost without fail the “key” in which you’re playing) and continue that for four measures (four separate counts of four). Then comes the IV chord, whatever that may be, for two measures, followed by two more measures of I. Then you have one measure each of V and IV and wind the whole thing up with two final measures of I. Nothing to it, right?

This is one of the many reasons why you can never scoff about knowing a little bit of theory. And is this case, a little theory goes an awfully long way. Think of all the chords that you know and try to think about how they apply to one another. If it helps, write yourself out a little chart like this (and I trust you’re capable of filling in the keys like Eb or F# by on your own…):

Now, you’re pretty much all set! If someone say’s “Let’s play Pride and Joy in E, using the first blues pattern, well, you wouldn’t even need me to write it out for you! But I will, just this once (and only the first verse). And, as an added bonus, I will add the measure count in parentheses:

Learning To Shuffle

Learning any blues song also provides you a chance to work on two important facets of playing – timing and what I call finesse. By finesse, I mean the ability to play just certain strings on your guitar and not bang away at all six strings at once (and if you’d like to read more about this, check out last fall’s column Just Because You Have Six Strings…).

The blues rhythm is usually referred to as a shuffle. To understand exactly how it’s done, you should familiarize yourself somewhat with timing. If you read music at all, I’m certain that you’re acquainted with the following notations:

Blues is more often than not played in 4 / 4 timing, which is when every measure (or bar) has four beats and each quarter note is one beat. The blues shuffle rhythm is based on triplets, but the middle note of each set is left out, leaving you with the following pattern:

Often times if you are reading this in a book, the author will write it out as a pair of eighth notes and have a remark somewhere on the page that a pair of eighth notes equals one of these triplet sets we’ve just spelled out (it is much easier than writing it out over and over (and over and over) again!).

Okay, that’s the rhythm, let’s get down to the actual notes themselves. Because we are just starting out, we are going to stick with the most basic shuffle for the time being. Next two times out we’ll look at a few of the more complicated variations. One thing at a time, okay?

Shuffling consists of playing a pattern of two pairs of simultaneous notes. The lower note is always the root (or I) of the chord you are playing. The higher note alternates between the V and VI of the chord. So, for example, if we were doing a blues shuffle on an E or an A chord, it would sound like this:

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Nowhere near as complicated as you might have thought it would be, is it? Alright, then, let’s move on to our feature presentation. First off, let me mention that Before You Accuse Me is a twelve bar blues (big surprise there), but this follows the second chord pattern – the one where the second measure is the IV of the progression. Then let me also mention that while most people (even Eric Clapton on his Unplugged CD) play this in E, I play it in A. Why? Well, for starters, it’s not in my vocal range when done in E. This is one good reason to know your vocal abilities, as we discuss in this week’s guitar column (Singing In A New Year). The second reason is a bit more crafty and we will delve more into that next time out. So without further ado, let’s shuffle off:

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As always, please feel free to write in with any questions, comments, concerns or even a song, riff or lead you’d like to see covered in a future “Songs For Beginners” article. You can either drop off a note at the Guitar Forums or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until next week…

Peace

Like many guitarists, I was always confused as to what Pentatonic this and Pentatonic that meant. Guitar books varied in their interpretation of blues scales and Pentatonic, and still do. Most of us get through in the end by using our ears and not the grey stuff in between.

Improvisation of any kind, either sung or played, has always tended to be modal. That is to say, a few notes are selected from a scale and used at random or through repetition, to create a desired effect. This is especially so in western music where the diatonic scales we are used to, tend to be too weighted down with notes, (twelve if we consider the sharps and flats).

Simple, memorable tunes can be found by taking just a few of these notes. If you think of the start of Three Blind Mice, you’ll see what I mean. This tune comprises of a basic modal phrase using the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd elements of the scale, and soon becomes familiar when repeated a few times.

Take five

The pentatonic scale is a way of using this modal system and has become the most popular. So, what is a pentatonic scale? As the name suggests it is five of something, that is, five notes selected from the diatonic scale. The five notes are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd , 5th, and 6th. In the “Pentatonic To The Blues” course (available at http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com), we see how these five notes have translated into the blues, as we work through the various examples, but at this point it is worth mentioning a few points in connection with the birth of the blues.

Simple folk songs that formed the basis of the many work songs and later the blues, had melodies derived from the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is not unique to western musical tradition. Similar scales exist in parts of Africa, and it is fair to assume they would have arrived with the slaves well before the birth of the blues. These pentatonic notes were somehow stressed into what we call blue notes.

Because of the attitudes and indifference to the birth of the Afro-American culture, it was many years before anyone cared to study the development of the blues note.

Here are a few theories on how the blues note actually came about:

1. The blues note developed because slaves were too exhausted to sing the simple pentatonic phrases of the work songs in complete tune.
2. Certain notes changed due to cultural differences and natural development.
3. The blues note was just a minor or sad feel, and was bound to happen due to appalling conditions.
4. The African pentatonic scales, already consisted of these blues notes and they just became integrated into the work songs.

The last point is probably the most likely origin of the blue note. Musicologists have shown, that in certain African tribes, the pentatonic scale is used to sing simple work songs, but differing to the European pentatonic by the lowering of the 3rd and 5th notes of the scale. The sound would have been eerie when mixed with the work songs and hollers of the deep south. It was not necessarily associated with the emotion of the blues as we know it, and could mean happy as well as sad.

Whatever happened, the sound became embedded in the unique Afro-American culture, and along with the many other social and economic factors, gave birth to the blues.

This article is taken from a course entitled Pentatonic To The Blues, one of the in-depth acoustic guitar courses you get when you subscribe to The Acoustic Guitar Workshop. http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com

About the author:

Rick Payne has also written Acoustic Slide Guitar – Technique and tips and History and Origin of the Slide Guitar in the Blues

Throughout the world musicians have created sounds by dragging objects across stringed instruments, for either effect or as an integral part of its sound. An example of this was discovered in W.Africa in the form of a musical bow. Still used today, this one stringed instrument was attached to a gourd resonator and held to the abdomen, while the player plucked the string and used a bone or metal to vary the pitch.

Investigators into the popular form of slide playing associated with the blues, determined that this was probably why a more contemporary version of the bow called the Jitterbug came to be used by the Negro musicians around the southern states of America at the turn of the century. With the influx of slaves, years before, came a rich culture of music, and although the slaves were bereft of possessions, a musical bow would be a simple instrument to make. The Jitterbug, like the bow, had one string, but this time simply attached to the floor or side of a shack. When plucked, an object would be dragged along the string to accompany simple songs. The sound, which could wail and moan like the human voice, became an ideal backing to the early blues and perhaps forerunner to the guitar’s role in the slide style.

But why the guitar?

In the early part of the 20th century, the guitar was becoming increasingly popular, as a cheaper alternative to the piano. Along with the banjo, it was more portable and could be ordered by catalog in the many rural backwaters. It is a safe bet to say, that knives, bones and glass, would have been used on the guitar as an extension to the Jitterbug. The guitar became more widely used with the slide, after a young Hawaiian guitarist called Joseph Kekeku made a recording using this style. It was a flashy, eerie kind of tune, that became popular in the U.S, and gave the already established Negro style more impetus.

The Hawaiian influence on slide playing cannot be overlooked. The speed at which the music spread into the American culture at the turn of the century was evident in the increased production of guitars and lap steels. All the main makers were turning them out: National, Rickenbacker and Gibson. In fact, the Hawaiian style lap steel, far out sold Spanish style guitars. Since the early Kekeku recordings, the use of the slide began to seep into all styles of music, from the early blues, right into the mountain Hillbilly music of early folk and country.

The Hawaiians have always laid claim to the invention of the slide guitar, but it is fairer to say, that it was a development rather than an invention. Anyway, the young J.K could easily have got the idea by listening to an American Negro sailor, whose ship had docked in Honolulu!

Whatever the worldly origins of the slide guitar, this form of playing is best known for it’s partnership with the blues. The slide playing of Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, to name a few, has reached almost classical status. It is a style that has captivated, amazed and baffled guitarists of all kinds, and to my mind has become the most enchanting.

About the author:

Rick Payne has also written Acoustic Slide Guitar – Technique and tips and Origins of the Pentatonic and Relevance to the Blues

There have been many objects used to achieve the slide sound. Knives, bottle necks, tubes of all kinds of metals and glass, spark plug sockets, lighters, stone, marble, plastic… anything! At sometime or other I’ve used them all but to keep things simple and effective, I use a real bottle neck or metal tube, cut long enough to be slightly longer than the pinkie.

Glass or metal?

Glass is great for smooth, long sustain – Paris Texas type stuff. The heavier glass the better. Avoid manufactured glass slides as they tend to lack sustain and brightness – use real bottle glass. Ry Cooder is said to use a Fighting Cock Kentucky Bourbon bottle!

Metal is good for more attack, especially electric. Experiment with heavy or light metal – both produce different sounds. Think Muddy Waters, light. Lowell George( Little Feat ) heavy.

For both glass and metal, think:

Heavy – better for sustain, more accuracy, good for long slow notes

Light – Thin sound, but faster, harder to keep accurate, less volume and sustain

Which finger?

This is a personal choice, as with most aspects of slide playing. Many well known players have used different combinations. I’ve always found the slide best suited to the pinkie. This allows me more opportunity to finger chords, and play regular fretted notes as well as play the slide. Anyway, if it’s good enough for Robert Johnson or Ry Cooder it’s good enough for me.

How do I stop all that scratching and buzzing?

Sometimes the extraneous noises can be used to great effect – listen to Blind Willie Johnson. For the purpose of improving technique, try and play cleanly and smoothly. Lose all those noises by dampening the strings behind the slide. When you release the fingers behind the slide – notice the difference.

Action and set-up

Use a guitar set-up with a slightly higher action, so there is less chance of the slide banging against the frets. It helps to minimise those extraneous noises we talked about earlier. However, if the action is too high, it will be harder to finger the chords when needed.

Strings

A personal choice again, but I believe the best sound is achieved by using the thickest you can manage – at least a 0013 on the top. Bob Brozman once told me that he used a 0017 on his National – now, there’s a real slide man for you!

What about guitars?

Acoustic or electric, who cares. I like the rootsy flavor of an acoustic for instant feel. My favorites are small bodied acoustics and resonators. I love all those junk shop guitars with bowed necks and impossible actions. Check them out. Slide players can pick up some real winners. In fact all the exercises in the Acoustic Guitar Workshop’s slide course were recorded with an old, small body Hofner, that I found in Denmark for 20 pounds.

For electric players, the fenders have great natural sustain. Check out that early Ry Cooder sound. With added compression, like the old purple pecker, or rack effects, the slide sounds great. On his later albums, Ry used the pick up from an old lap steel, for that real slide sound and phenomenal sustain. The trick is don’t be afraid to experiment.

Vibrato – the soul of slide

This is a crucial aspect of slide playing.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. Think of the slide ( bottleneck, or whatever you decide to use ) as a moving fret which by careful handling will maintain the pitch of the note you are trying to play. If you are new to slide playing you will fast realise how difficult this is. Vibrato with the slide means you play a compromise between an in and out of tune note – somewhere in the middle is the correct pitch. To keep good pitch, keep the slide at right angles to the fret at all times.

A violinist uses the same effect on the fretboard ( fretless of course ) to maintain steady pitch. Witness the intense movement of the fingers as they ensure the right notes are achieved.

This is especially so for the slide, when reaching the end of a phrase or riff; the final note sounds dull or sharp or flat unless vibrato is used. There are many different styles of vibrato. Listen to the intense movement of the slide on Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, or the almost non existent vibrato on Tampa Red’s Denver Blues. This leads me to my next main point.

2. Vibrato gives your slide playing a personal touch which can reflect the intensity of your mood or your feeling for the blues. Once you feel comfortable with the slide, experiment with different amounts of vibrato – light or heavy. Listen to as many players as you can and gauge the amount used which distinguishes their playing.

The slide can be held tight against a finger to produce a very controlled movement or loose for a more carefree result.

Careful though, as they tend to fly off your finger!

I’ve noticed that some players use lack of vibrato to produce quarter tones, which are carefully placed, and give an eerie effect against the proper pitched note. Once again, listen to Blind Willie Johnson or Ry Cooder ( Vigilante Man is a good example ) to hear these notes. More about these mysterious quarter tones elsewhere in the Acoustic Guitar Workshop slide course.

About the author:

Rick Payne has also written Origins of the Pentatonic and Relevance to the Blues and History and Origin of the Slide Guitar in the Blues