Guitar · Chapter 12 of 23
The Twelve-Bar Blues
Twelve bars, three chords, and a rhythm that rocks. The twelve-bar blues grew up in the American South around 1900 and is still everywhere.
A twelve-bar blues uses three chords, built on the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of the key. In E those are E, A and B, usually played as seventh chords. The order of the twelve bars hardly ever changes, so once you know it you can join in with any blues.
The pattern
| bar 1 | bar 2 | bar 3 | bar 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Line 1 | E | E | E | E |
| Line 2 | A | A | E | E |
| Line 3 | B7 | A | E | E (B7) |
The last bar often switches to B7 to send you back to the start: that bar is called the turnaround.
The seventh chords
Strum them through the whole pattern with the blues shuffle strum (down-up, long-short):
Swing: long-short
Blues eighth notes are not even. The first of each pair is longer, the second shorter, like a heartbeat or a horse’s gallop: DAH-da DAH-da. That’s called swing or a shuffle feel. The players on this page swing automatically.
The two-string shuffle
The classic blues guitar rhythm part uses only two strings: the open bass string and the string next to it. For E, play strings 6 and 5 together: string 6 open, string 5 pressed at the 2nd fret (finger 1), then at the 4th fret (finger 3), rocking back and forth, two strums each:
For A, move the same shape over one string: strings 5 and 4. Rest the side of your picking hand lightly on the strings near the bridge for a chunky, muted sound (that’s palm muting).
Front Porch Blues
All twelve bars of the shuffle, with a little walk down the 2nd string into B7 in the last bar.
Remember
- E E E E | A A E E | B7 A E E (or B7).
- Swing the eighths: long-short.
- The shuffle: two strings, frets 2 and 4 rocking over an open bass.