Songs · Guitar · Beginner
Front Porch Blues
Teddy Rook Book (original) · A twelve-bar blues in E, written for this course in the style of the early country blues
Guitar · bluesflatpickingE major4/4 time12 barsstandard tuning
Arranged: Teddy Rook Book: an original piece; the shuffle on two strings is the common blues accompaniment pattern, and the turnaround is our own.
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About this piece
The blues shuffle every guitarist learns: two strings at a time, the low string open and the finger rocking between the 2nd and 4th frets on the string next to it. Play the eighths long-short, like a heartbeat (that’s swing). The twelve bars move from E to A and back, up to B7, and the last bar walks down the 2nd string into the B7 chord to send you around again. Pick everything with down strokes at first.
What it practices
- the twelve-bar blues
- a two-string shuffle
- swing eighths
- palm muting (optional)
Chords in this song
Each link opens the chord finder with more ways to play that chord.
Where the notes come from
Original composition by Teddy Rook Book for this course (no source needed); the twelve-bar form and the shuffle pattern are traditional.
How to practice with it
- Listen first. Press Play and follow along. The note being played lights up in the tab, in the notation and on the fretboard, and the chord being played lights up in the row of chord diagrams.
- Learn the chords. Press each diagram to hear it, then practice changing between them slowly.
- Slow it down. Use − and + to set the tempo. 60% is a good place to start; the notes keep their pitch.
- Loop the hard part. Under More…, turn on Loop, pick the bars, and play them a few times in a row. Count-in gives you a bar of clicks before it starts.
Click a bar in the music to start from there. Space plays and pauses. Left-handed? Turn on the left-handed view: the chord diagrams and the fretboard are mirrored to match your instrument. Tab reads the same either way: the top line is always the first (highest) string.