The best way to get used to playing the blues is to have a go at improvising over the top of a 12 bar blues chord progression. Simple 12 bar blues track 1 anonymous 4 4 0 2 0 2 0 4 0 4 240 1 0 2 0 2 0 4 0 4 2 0 2 0 2 0 4 0 4 3. The jazz blues progression tutorial now that you have a good understanding of basic blues form, its time to enhance it to create the more interesting and sophisticated jazz blues progression. If you are wishing to order the pdf mp3 files please go to the correct page as this product is for the pdf file only. Music theory study 6 blues harmonica lessons blues. A beginners guide page 9 tablature and chord diagrams tablature. Since the main difference between the pentatonic major and minor is that the minor has the b3 and b7 which both provide the tonality of the scale. Introduction learn the blues shuffle and the rhythm that makes it bluesy. Intermediate start lesson after you start a lesson, you are able to mark a lesson as complete, and track your progress. We will be playing it in the key of g, so our chords are g, c and d. However there are fundamental elements that are unique to jazz blues guitar performance. This piece offers a wonderful opportunity for young musicians to discover the 12. How to play a 12 bar blues scale guitar lessons youtube.
Blues harmonica improv, what about other styles of music. A beginners guide page 6 introduction this book is for all beginning guitarists, especially those who dont yet believe they can play the guitar. Ultimate blues organ riffs pdf file digital sheet music. In the basic f blues, the 12 bars are only made up of 3 different chords. For example, the f major blues scale is the same as the d blues scale some people call this the minor blues scale but the d blues scale starts on d and its home base root note. The 12 bar blues is a 12 bar long chord progression that solo blues musicians can easily improvise over the top of because the chord progression is familiar to. It is assumed that you are familiar with the 12 bar blues progression. This book and audio package is solely devoted to providing you with all the technical tools necessary for playing 12 bar blues with authority. If you want to get really bluesy, build a blues scale for each chord.
Chord changes in the 12 bar blues blues piano synthesia tutorial. Heres a fun bass solo idea over a 12 bar blues in e, texas style. Try using each of the 4 different scales in turn picking out different notes each time. So our three scales we will be working with will be. Gordon is he feels, one of his most important books because of the nature of the blues scale and how it is used to improvise in many styles of contemporary music. They need to know which chords and concepts to begin with, and which ones to ignore. You can either play one scale over all bars or change scale as the chord change. This is essential skills you need, if you want to be a blues player.
Examining the 12bar blues pattern if youve ever spent any time around a serious blues musician or music aficionado, youve probably heard the phrase 12 bar blues tossed about. Once you learn to play the 12 bar blues on the guitar, you can play such classic blues pieces as hound dog, stormy monday, kansas city, st. Its called the 12 bar blues because its only 12 bars long. Scale choices for 12bar blues effective music practice. Here are some of my favourite online music resources. Musical elements form the form is based on the 12 bar blues. Blues scales blues is an irresistible tonality for a guitar player. There is however, another scale that is very similar, but much more bluesy.
Youll also learn the blues bass scales and a history of the bass in blues music. While this does the job as far as creating that bluesy sound, there is a far more effective and expressive way of playing through blues changes. Introduction to the 12 bar blues master guitar academy. Use the g major pentatonic in folk, country and rock in the key of g when you dont want the blues sound. Gordon is a thoroughly groovy compendium of over 50 12bar riffs. You can play your solos, practice your scales and play with a real band. The most common musical form of blues is the 12bar blues.
There are plenty of arrangements, based on chord progressions, to use. This chord progression is based around the most important chords. Name each of the notes of the triads using the lyric key using semibreves, create the 12 bar blues chords in the bass clef insert a bass instrument and c. When playing over a progression like the bb jazz blues you need to be aware of. The 12 bar blues is a chord progression used in blues and rock music that lasts for 12 bars. Feel free to contact me at kirkjerk at gmail dot com if i can.
You can now play in safe mode with these notes, each note will sound more or less good, there are no wrong notes. The 12 bar blues is by far the most popular form for the blues. In addition, it is a common method to put extra empathize on the tones of the involved chords when the actual chord is being played. Blues harmonica blues harp basic blues improvisation and jamming instruction for diatonic harmonica. Free 12 major blues scale sheet steve neff music blog. The 12 bar blues has long been a favourite amongst music educators for teaching form, triads, the blues scale, cyclical chord progressions and music history. In solo performance, both accompaniment and melody must be provided on the guitar.
The blues scale is used to improvize over the 12 bar blues, which leads to that very familiar blues guitar sound. Its easier than it looks improv and jamming are based on using blues harmonica riffs and scales that you already know which have been ingrained through repetition and. Blues performance worksheets and cover lesson teaching. The minor pentatonic scale can be used over a 12bar blues. Chord changes in the 12 bar blues blues piano tutorial youtube. You can get more charts in with custom tunings using my interactive scale generator here.
There is an increased interest in playing the organ these days as many keyboard players are adding organ. I have also included the 5 box patterns you need to learn in order to memorize the blues scales in all. The 12 bar is an extremely common structure when playing blues. Blues in d introduction to open tuning open d blues in g bottleneckslide guitar blues in c minor blues. How to really improvise using the blues scale youtube. If you take a look at the sheet you might notice that the scales are the same as the scales on my free 12 blues scales sheet but that they start on a different note. Pattern 1st 2nd flattened 3rd 3rd 4th 5th 6th flattened 7th 7th. When playing a blues in a, like in the above examples, we can use an a minor pentatonic scale to improvise and construct solos. Most effective way of soloing over blues progressions. Jazz blues guitar a lecture in vital performance aspects and their. Pdf format blues grooves for beginners and beyond shows you how to play blues shuffles, boogies, riffs and progressions. The blues scale for transposing instruments and guitar tab 3.
This is a pack of worksheets to be used as part of a blues scheme of work at ks3 or ks4. Student theory worksheets on the 12 bar blues chord p. A 12 bar blues is performed, as the name implies, by playing twelve bars in a given arrangement that are repeated through a song. The most common musical form of blues is the 12 bar blues. To play the blues is a fascinating undertaking because it can be both simplistic and yet intangibly tricky to master. Next on the agenda is to show you how to play it all the way up and down the neck. Most jazz standards are 32 bars long and so the blues form is less that a third of the length of a typical jazz standard. Lets learn the blues scales on piano and keyboard in every key.
Other common blues progressions include the 8 bar, 16 bar, and 24 bar blues. Understanding the 12 bar blues form rock class 101. Blues harmonica blues harp riffs, licks, jamming, and. One of the things that makes this such a popular scale for beginning as well as experienced improvisers is that you can often use this one 5note scale over all the chords of a typical 12 bar blues. Whilst the basic 12 bar blues just contains 3 chords, the i, the iv and the v, the jazz blues also incorporates the most common progression in jazz. The image above represents the harmonization of the a major scale. Eb, gb and bb are the so called blue notes of the scale. Gordons blues pianokeyboard books, 100 ultimate blues riffs and the 12 bar blues bible, he has adapted examples from the two books along with new examples into a blues organ book and ultimate blues organ riffs is the result. A bar is a musical phrase, a way of measuring the music against its rhythm, and blues songs are structured in a 12 bar format. Scale choices for 12 bar blues in this excerpt from sfs pentatonics 2 navigating chord changes, we study a process of selecting and applying different scale choices, when improvising over 12 bar blues progressions. The lack of the major scales 4th and 7th scale tones makes the pentatonic sound wonderfully generic.
Blues bass solo in e using the major pentatonic scale. The description below is for the pdf and audio files. With only 3 chords in a 12 bar blues, it has the power to move you. The 12 bar blues chord progression is in the treble clef on the score. Our example used our three common chords, but in a different order than were accustomed to seeing. Use the e minor pentatonic scale when playing 12 bar blues in either e major or e minor, it works equally well over both. Blues bass solo in e using the major pentatonic scale youtube. For instance, in the c blues scale the notes are c eb f gb g bb c. The gullah net website includes information about the evolution of blues music and how it influenced. Here are the blues scales in all 12 keys listed in circle of fifths order. It can be used over anything including the 12 bar blues, funk and jazz providing the key doesnt change. The 12 bar blues bible for pianokeyboards by andrew d. The 12 bar blues is the most common blues chord progression. Once you can play the 12 bar blues in a all the way through, picking with the occasional strum, then you can start to mix it up.
You can replace any of the chord notes you pick, with the blues scale notes including all the open strings, from time to time. Blues music paved the way for many other genres of music we know and love. Mar 16, 2017 this is a lesson for beginners explaining how to improvise using the blues scale. A blues scale consists of 6 different notes, namely the root, flat 3rd, 4th, flat 5th, 5th and flat 7th of the major scale. The traditional 12 bar blues has a total of 12 bars or measures of the iivv chords that keep repeating in 12 bar blocks over and over. Writing your own blues lyrics also suitable as a cover lesson 7. Over the first 8 bars, the blues scale of the root chord, your i7, is super safe and cool sounding. If you are wishing to order the pdfmp3 files please go to the correct page as this product is for the pdf file only. Finally, once you have grasped the essentials of lick analysis, begin your own investigations. Gordon is he feels, one of his most important books because of the nature of the blues scale and how it is used to improvise in many. Lets say we have a standard 12 bar blues in e with the chords e7a7b7.
Use the e scale below and locate the red root notes e. This pdf contains the scale charts for the blues scale in all keys for guitar in standard tuning. The zip file contains the file in both pdf and ppt format and the four mp3 sound files. Now that you know how to play some open chords on the guitar, youre ready to use them to play the 12 bar blues scale. This course consists of a series of videos, teaching you how to play the 12 bar blues progression. Blues guitar overview introduction 12 bar blues in emajor 12 bar blues in amajor emajor revisited some other blues progressions some fingerpicking challenges more examples in e and a some theory. Licks 21 24 in the pdf are for bars 11 12 difficulty level. When playing a twelve bar blues in the key of bb, use the bb blues scale anywhere in the chord progression. So thats the 12 bar blues in the key of e in the first position on the neck. Teaching slides based on the theory of the 12 bar blues chord progression and the blues scale. Blues guitar chords to open a full size 12 bar blues pdf file example click on the thumbnail images below. To get the minor pentatonic scale, add the black notes egabd. Blues, boogiewoogie, rock, gospel funkyblues, jazz. The chords are written as triads using minims on the 1st and 3rd beats of each bar.
In todays lesson, we are going to take an indepth look at how the form, or structure, of a blues chord progression is made. The 12 bar blues and the minor blues scale online guitar. Blues grooves teaches you the basic 12 bar blues turnarounds, riffs, and shuffles. How to play a 12bar blues scale guitar lessons youtube. Often new players are drawn to the instrument because of a desire to play the blues. Certain key signatures, techniques and chord inversions work idiomatically, more suitably and widely appropriated for jazz blues guitar. Scale choices for 12bar blues in this excerpt from sfs pentatonics 2 navigating chord changes, we study a process of selecting and applying different scale choices, when improvising over 12 bar blues progressions. We call this section basic blues harmonica improv, but the information here applies to most types of popular music you would like to jam to. The chord progression is easy for beginners because it only uses three chords, the root, the fourth, and the fifth. The blues scale for alto saxophone and eb instruments pdfmp3midi files.
This is where the use of walking bass, chord tones and. Unfortunately, having grown up playing tuba in a lot of bands, i might be using terminology and notation and forgetting that not everyone knows it. Soloing over blues progressions a more effective approach most guitarists are taught to play minor pentatonic or the flat 5 blues scale when soloing over a 1 4 5 blues progression. There are only so many combinations with this format, so the feeling of familiarity is just not one you can escape as a musician or a listener. Because blues is a simple, consistant form of music, it is a great place to begin your improv regardless of which musical styles you to play. Although blues music has evolved over time, a fundamental chord progression called the 12 bar blues still lives on. Backing tracks from real instruments no computer tracks. Not all blues songs follow the 12bar format, but by understanding this basic musical. Each of these songs follows the 12 bar blues pattern. Play classic blues, bluesrock, boogie, texas blues. As a consequence, they have become synonymous with the style. Purchase, download and print sheet music pdf file now.