BLUES
The 12 Bar BLUES
You can play the blues with 3 chords – all you need to know is how long to play each for (the ‘structure’ of the 12 bar blues)
12 Bar in Key of E
CHORDS in the key of E
You need three chords to play a 12-bar blues in E – E7, A7 and B7.
In the key of E, we have E as the I chord, A as the IV chord and B as the V chord.
E7, A7 and B7 are the 3 chords we need.
12 Bar Structure in the key of E
The 12 Bar Blues in the key of E means that we play:
- 4 bars of an E7 chord
- 2 bars of an A7 chord
- 2 bars of an E7 chord
- the last four bars have one chord each per bar B7, A7, E7 and B7 again.
12 Bar Blues AS 3 SECTIONS
CHORDS in the key of E
The best way to visualize this is to break the 12 bars into:
- the first 4 bars
- the middle 4 bars
- and the last 4 bars
FIRST FOUR BARS
The first 4 bars are easy! – you just play an E major or an E7 chord.
MIDDLE FOUR BARS
Then the middle 4 bars are: A7 for two bars and then E7 for two bars.
LAST 4 BARS
Then the last 4 bars has 4 chords – B7, A7, E7 and B7 again.
Audio Examples
12 Bar in E
12-Bar Slow
12-Bar Fast
summary
Memorize the 12-Bar blues by learning the first 4, middle 4 and last 4 bars.
Play with the audio file until it becomes second nature to play along.
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