12 bar blues

The bluesiest of the blues chord progressions is the 12 bar blues! If you don't know it and you want to play blues, you've come to the right address!

Let's just start with the recording:

Explanation

Even the bluesiest of the bluesiest chord progression can be played with a lot of variation. Without telling too much details about blues itself, I'll focus on the example and how to play it. In this specific example i've chosen the following 'parameters':

• In the key of E
• Shuffle rhythm

Shuffle rhythm

In short, this rhythm means that you play repeated pairs of notes/strums. In a straight rhythm however, every strum stands for itself.

Chord progression

Each block is a bar. There are 12 bars, thus the 12-bar blues :)

Tab

How are the chords played? The strum rhythm up or down is displayed above.

Exercise

To hear only the guitar:

Use the backing track/rhythm track (4 ticks before starting):