Hey guys, Andy here, and in this lesson I'm talking you guys through how to do a basic 12 bar blues
in the key of E.
(Intro music)
Now that key of E means that we have three chords in total. We start on an E, we have an A major chord,
and a B7 chord .
We can also do the 7th versions of the E and the A so E7 and A7, but they're
usually seen as added options and I'll be showing you the most typical places that we put those in.
This 12 bar blues in E is used in literally thousands and thousands of songs
it's a very common chord progression and it's that progression and typical strumming pattern
that we're going to be talking you through in this lesson.
The song is that this is most similar to are the Eric Clapton version of "Before You Accuse Me "
certainly the acoustic unplugged version is a fantastic example
and also "Sweet Home Chicago" this is kind of a simplified version of both of those songs
and giving you all the right principles to move you forward.
And if there's anything that you can't do in this lesson or that you struggle with
there are the chords and the strumming patterns that I use taught in the earlier lessons in this series.
this is level seven of my beginners course and the previous lessons are all available in the playlists
and on this package before this one.
So allow me to demo exactly what we're going to be going for in this lesson now so you can get a feel for it.
And that's what we were going for. You can see that I've used two distinct strumming patterns there
both of those strumming patterns use the swing strumming that we covered earlier on
but I begin with playing it with an all downs motion using palm muting
for the first eight bars of this chord sequence and then when I hit the B7 we moved to downs and ups
So what is this chord sequence? You can see on the screen now that we have a bar of the E major
and we're just going to play the thicker strings but it's still a good idea to keep the whole E down
just in case you do want to accent any full strums.
Then we go to an A. Now I have begun playing this A major
like this even though I have taught it previously
like this. The idea of this A is to have an anchor finger to allow the change to be easier.
At this level it's presumed that you'll be okay with changes, certainly between E and A,
and what we can do is lift off to add a little blues lick in there which would be,
in context, E to A
we have that little da-da-dum which is a very common blues riff
and we're just lifting off on the last ~and~ of 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and
on the A and that's our first 2 bars of this 12 bar chord sequence. We then have a further two bars of E
but the last E is an E7
then we have two bars of the A major chord but I'd recommend switching the second one to an A7
to further give this blues feel
so that would be start of the second line 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and.
and then two bars of E
and again I'd recommend that the second one be changed to the E7th chord to give that blues feel
and it is those first eight bars that we're going to be doing with this down strumming
so let me just demonstrate that from the start. If you'd like to have a go at playing along please do
but we'll be playing along to the full thing in a second
2 - 3 - 4.
E -2 - 3 - 4
and A 2 - 3
lift to E
E7
A
A7
and E
E7
so that's the first 8 bars of our 12 bar sequence. 4 more to go and we go to our new B7th chord
new for this level of my beginners course anyway
and we play this with down and up strumming so 1, and 2, and 3, and 4.
Changing our strumming motion because we no longer wanting to palm mute it, typically
and it's these last 4 bars that should be a little louder typically in any 12 bar blues chord sequence
to give the sequence a little bit of rise and fall.
this is a very common chord sequence because of this rise and fall in it
We've only changed between two chords and we've stayed on them for a long time, and now
we're going to change, every chord has a, every bar has a new chord in it
that's no accident, it does really work for this sequence and those chords are
B7 for a bar
A7 for a bar
a normal E chord
finishing on the B7.
That one more time
So I'm going to demo this chord sequence from the top shouting out when I move
if you can play along that's great, I'll be going super slow
but we'll be having a full play along in a second after I've talked you through a couple of other little tweaks
So from the E chord, from the top in 2, and, 3, and, 4, and
with palm muting
so that's our sequence if you haven't joined in yet please definitely do this time
and note again that that palm muting is just on the first 8 bars when we are using the down strumming
and as soon as I moved to a down and up strumming motion the rhythm stays the same
but the strumming motion changes because we want more strings ringing out
and the downs and ups gives this kinda lazy feel to the finish
One note about this whole 12 bar blues is making sure, as with all our chords, that were not playing the
thickest E string on either the A or the B7th chord
and when I do that I'm keeping my thumb just set on top certainly not over the front but on top like this
on the B7
and the A
and therefore I can strum all six strings or even just the thicker few
but we do want to try and miss out that thickest one on the A or the B7 certainly when we're doing
the palm muted ones.
So let's join in together this time
from your E chord, with palm muting in 2, and, 3, and, 4
One more time again from the top
E chord
A chord
little riff
and finishing on an E7
always sounds, a nice way to finish this chord sequence. So that is a 12 bar blues in E.
As I said definitely check out Eric Clapton's "Before You Accuse Me" from his unplugged MTV session
as the best example of this and for something that you can now play along to,
if you could play along to me there, and you have the changes in the the progression pretty much down
This chord sequence does have a lot of the new chords that we've got at this level, the 7th chords
and certainly that B7 is so crucial before you really try and get the F barre chord
which will be the next chord that I recommend you learn in this course
and so we need some songs that use that B7 to really get that one in particular working well
make sure you're using it in real songs and the best couple of examples I can give for you are
"Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" and "Hey Jude".
both of those songs have lessons that are on my website or by myself on YouTube already.
Really recommend that you check out those two songs. The other great song example at this level that's
just super popular and on my YouTube lesson and it with private students is "Hotel California".
not too many of the newer chords in of this level in this song but there's an awful... there's more chords
in this song than that has been previously, certainly.
It's a much longer sequence, very distinctive a lot of students really like it
definitely recommended at level 7 you check out "Hotel California" and just to round up this level
now we're going to be finishing this level with the practice routine that's coming up in the next lesson
and in the bonus lesson that is part of this sort of a beginners course
but it is available as a download only so all these courses available to purchase as well
I'm going to be covering some blues turnarounds which may really interest a lot you guys
that want to do some some blues so that's what we did some of the single note lines that we've been doing to
the end of this 12 bar blues chord sequence that you've just learned to kind of make it a bit more interesting
and there will be a demo lesson if you click through the playlist and as I say, they're available as an incentive
to kind of purchase the the download package that I'm making available.
but other than that I'll see you in the practice routine in the next lesson or in any of the song lessons
that you choose to do from my website or on YouTube and I'll see you in one of those next lessons
You can download this video and the e-book that goes with this entire course by clicking in this area here.
Click over there to watch the next lesson here on YouTube
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