Help with 12 bar blues...

Hi,

The A minor pentatonic will do fine. It's the careful use of minor scales with major chords that give the Blues its characteristic sound.

Walking from one chord to another can start as early as you want it to. If you leave it unti lthe end of one bar, you might find you've not left yourself enough time to do anything except a leading note slide up to the new chord (i.e. from C# up to D to achieve the D9 chord, and D# to E to do the E9).

Best,

A :-)

Thanks AG. (I'll assume from your avatar that you know of what you speak when it comes to the blues!)

I actually have a follow up question....Are there hard, fast rules that I should follow when creating the walking bass lines? For example, when going from A7 to D9, should I make sure that I "walk' into the root of the next chord (D) or can I play anything as long as it's in key and sounds OK?

Sounds an interesting lesson....rather than the usual A, D, E7 progression...any way you can show us where you're actually playing these chords? (Tab for instance)

Vic

I would love to execpt I'm not sure how to post a tab in here...Let me see if I can just explain it...

A7: Traditional barre chord at the fifth fret.
D9: Ring finger barres B and G string at 5th fret (E,C); Index finger plays D string, 4th fret (F#); Middle finger plays A string, 5th fret (D).
E9: Slide the D9 up 2 frets.

The D9 and E9 are kind of played Stevie Ray Vaughn style.

Make sense?

A7: Traditional barre chord at the fifth fret.

Anothe way to play an A7 is a regular A chord with the low e (highest pitched e, it's kinda screwed up in guitar because the highest pitched string is the "lowest" string...) fingered on the 3rd fret.

Like this
e 3
b 2
g 2
d 2
a 0
e x

Yeah, makes sense....just tried those fingerings, nice bluesy feel to them... you're actually playing a 9th chord without the fifth, so the b7 seems more to the fore-front than the 9th....

Thanks,

Vic

it's kinda screwed up in guitar because the highest pitched string is the "lowest" string...

When you speak of it, I believe the correct way is to always speak in terms of pitch, so the highest string is the highest in pitch, likewise the highest fret is the highest in pitch, regardless of their orientation in relation to gravity.

Easiest way to play an A7 in standard tuning:

E| 0
B| 2
G| 0
D| 2
A| 0
E| x

Just a regular open A chord, with the middle second-fretted A left unfingered for the G (minor seventh.)

With minimal additional effort, you get a bluesier feel with another minor seventh on the E string
E| 3
B| 2
G| 0
D| 2
A| 0
E| x

Not sure if this progression is supposed to be about learning the chord shapes or doing the fills, but open chords definitely facilitate the latter.

I definately want to keep the chord shapes the way my teacher has taught them. I'm trying to challenge myself to become a better player and these shapes are definately challenging! Plus, the shapes I'm using just seem "bluesier." However, I also want to add some nice fills but I want to make sure I'm staying "within the rules."

I would've thought it hard to play fills and walking bass-lines when all four fingers are already busy...the D9 is not the easiest chord to fret, even if you're already at the 5th fret for the A7....

I just looked up alternate ways to play a D9, this was one alternative that seems a little easier...

E A D G B E
5 7 7 7 7 8

sort of like a barre'd D7, but with the barre extending from the D string to the A string....you really have to play all 6 strings to get this sounding nice, though.....

Vic