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What Are 12-Bar Blues? (below)

The 12 bar blues progression is the foundation of the blues. The whole blues genre is very minimalistic.

Basically all you need to get started is to learn the 12 bar blues progression and "The Most Commonly
Used Lead Pattern" (this pattern can be found in the member's area) which is basically just a modified
version of the pentatonic minor scale many of us are familiar with.

There are two common variations of the 12 bar blues progression. We'll use Roman numerals to indicate
each chord's relationship to the key.

The "I" chord is the first chord in the key, "IV" is the fourth chord in the key, and "V" is the fifth chord
in the key.

These 3 chords are the most important chords in almost any genre, not just the blues. Usually without
the heavy use of these 3 chords a song will loose it's sense of key-which is bad news in almost any
genre of music.

Many genre-including the blues-use these 3 chord on an exclusive basis. Ever heard someone poke fun
at garage bands that only know 3 chords, or 3 chord rock songs? Well, these 3 chords are the ones
they are talking about.

Now on to the actual 12 bar blues progression. The brackets will indicate a measure (or bar) and the
roman numeral tells you which chord (the 1st, 4th, or 5th chord in the key). The last two bars of the
progression is called the "turnaround" that leads us back to the beginning. Things to do during
turnarounds are a whole separate topic unto themselves.

[I][I][I][I][IV][IV][I][I][V][IV][I][I,IV,V]

Below is the "quick change" variation. The only difference is the substitution of the IV chord in the
second meausure.

[I][IV][I][I][IV][IV][I][I][V][IV][I][I,IV,V]

Now, how the heck do we determine what chords to play. If we were playing in the key of A we
could locate the A on the 5th fret of the low E string which is the I chord. Using the first diagram
above we would know that the IV chord is D and the V chord is E.

If it was the key of A minor instead of A it would be Am, Dm, Em instead. Simple, eh?

Okay, what about 7th chords, 9th chords, and so on? Remember that these fancy chords are only
a major or minor chord with added notes. So, technically you can throw in one of these chords in
substitution of a regular major or minor chord. Just use the right one. Don't throw in a minor chord
variation in substitution of a major chord.

For example our A major key song we could use A7, D7, E7 or A9, D9, E9, and our A minor song we
could use Am7, Dm7, Em7 and so on.

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