When it comes to playing the blues there are two things you need to know.

1.) How the 12 bar blues works

2.) How to play the 12 bar blues in different keys

There are some keys which are more used then others. The two most commonly played keys in the blues are E and A, if we determine which chords are played from those keys we can figure out the most common chords for blues.

In this post I’ll explain the 12 bar blues, which keys are most popular and what chords you need to play the 12 bar blues in those keys.

12 Bar Blues

The 12 bar blues is a pattern which repeats itself through out most blues songs and is made up of three different chords from a given key.

The chords you need to know are the one, the four and the five chord. These are easy to find, simply refer to the major the scale for that particular key.

The pattern you play these chords in is:

I – I – I – I – IV – IV – I – I – V – IV – I – V

In the above example I = one, IV = four and V = five.

Blues in the Key of A

First we need to determine what our one, four and five chords are. We can get these from looking at the A major scale.

A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A

So our I chord is the A, our IV chord is the D and our V chord is the E.

By plugging these into the 12 bar blues pattern above you can play the 12 bar blues in the key of A.

Blues in the Key of E

Like above we can find the chords we need by looking to the E major scale.

E – F# – G# – A – B – C# – D

The I chord is the E, the IV chord is the A and the V chord is the B.

Common Blues guitar chords

There is some overlap between the chords for A and E. Between the Key of A and the Key of E we have the E chord, D chord, A chord and the B Chord. These are the commonly used chords in a large percent of blues guitar patterns and songs.

To make these sound even more bluesy you’ll want to play something a bit different then just open major chords. Learning 7th or 5th chords is a popular alternative in the blues. While this is outside the scope of this post a blues guitar lessons dvd would teach you the basics of what you need to spice up your blues progressions.

When you learn blues guitar the process isn’t all about technical study, but more about learning the basics and making it your own.

Blues Guitar Lessons – Big Book of Blues – Vamp 4

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