EASY 12 Bar Blues Guitar Lesson Acoustic & Electric for Beginners

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. In this lesson video, we're going to go over fun little exercise for the 12 Bar Blues in the key of A major. Really, really fun if you enjoy the blues. So let's get into the lesson video.

So this is one of those things that I teach beginner guitar students that really makes them feel really good about themselves. Because I think when you're learning guitar, you need to have those wins in the beginning. And I think this is one that helps my students. So we're going to go through 12 bar blues. I'm going to show simple form to get through this. And then the second half of the video, we're going to add a little spice in to make it sound super, super cool. So first, let's just talk about the chords we're going to be using. So I said we're going to be doing 12 bars blues in the key of A major. If you don't know what that means, don't worry. It just means we're going to be using the chords A, D and E. And there is a form you use for blues, which. A form is just basically a formula. There's a specific order we play the chords in. And oftentimes in blues, the A chord is referred to as the I chord. The D is referred to as the 4 chord, and the E is referred to as the 5. So we typically have a 1, 4, 5 type progression here. So what we're going to do is we're going to be using very, very simple power chords. Now, I did a video on these really easy power chords. I'll put it up here. You guys can go check that out. I'm going to go through it very quickly here. But if you need a little bit more instruction, go go check that video out and then pop on back here. So first, let's start at the top of the guitar and we'll work our way down. We have an E major bar chord. Okay? So it's the open string, open top string. And then the first finger is on the second fret of the fifth string. Okay? That's the chord. A is going to be open A strings. And then second fret on the D string, you're going to play both of those at the same time. And then the D chord is going to be the open D string. And then the first finger on the second fret of the G. So all you're doing is moving your first finger.

Down, up and down these strings. So now that you know what chords we're going to be using, let's talk about the form that we're going to be using for this particular exercise. So the particular chord progression that I'm going to be using for this 12 bar blues is going to be the A chord twice. It's going to be the D chord twice. And then we're going to repeat that A twice, D twice. Then we're going to go to E major, which is going to be our V chord. Right? So we're going to be going to the E chord, back to the D chord, then we're going to go to the A chord and then we're going to wrap up on that V chord again before we start looping it all over. Alright, so if you look at the diagram over here and you add up all those chords, you're going to see that we have 12 chords. That's why it's called the 12 Bar Blues. There's 12 measures of chords that we're going to play through. And then once we get through, we're going to repeat it all over again. Now there are some variations on this form. I'm just doing it in this order because I think it's. I think it makes it a little bit more fun for you guys. So let's start off with our strumming pattern. We're going to do a blues shuffle here. Alright, so this is the easier version of this. Stay tuned. At the end I'm going to add a little bit of spice in here.

So we're going to add a little bit of spice to make it even cooler. But I just want you to get the basics to start. Alright, so we're going to start with an A chord and we're going to do a shuffle rhythm.

It's going to be 1, A2, A3, A4, A1, A2, A3, a4, a1, a2, a3, a4.

So instead of it being straight eighth notes, where you have 1, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

You got a shuffle.

So there's like a long, short, long.

Short, long, short, long, short, long, short, long.

So that's our shuffle. Okay. That's what we're going to be doing for the rhythm on this song. So I said we're going to start with an A chord and we're going to do two measures. So we're basically going to do a full measure of this pattern, repeat it and then we're going to move to our D chords. It's going to sound like this. So it's going to be 1, a.

2, a 3, a 4, a 1 a 2, a 3, a four.

We're going to go to our D chord now.

One a 2, a 3, A 4, a 1, a 2, a 3rd a 4.

Now we're going to go back to our a chord.

We one a two, a three, a four, a one, a two, a three, a Four.

Back to the D chord.

One a two, a three, a 4, a one, a two, A three, a four.

Now we're gonna jump up to our E chord.

So we got one A2, A3, A4.

Then we're gonna jump down to our.

D. One A2 A3, A4 and then back to A1, one A2, A3, a4 and one A2, a3 A4 on the.

E. So that was the whole progression. So if I play it a little bit faster, we're going to start at the A chord again. So we got one, a two, a.

Three, a four, a one, a two, a three or a four, a one, a 2, a 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a 3.

Back to a 1, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3. To D. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now we're gonna jump up to E.

3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. To D.

To A.

So there you go. That is your very, very simple 12 bar blues exercise. Now I know I said very, very simple. If the shuffle pattern, if you're new to guitar, can be tricky. So if you're having a little bit of issue with that, with that, don't worry. Just slow down the video and keep replaying and working with me through that shuffle pattern until you get it. So if that wasn't so bad and you're ready to move on in the second half of the video, I'm going to show you something you can do to spice this up just a little bit more. Hey, I hope you guys enjoyed that first part of the video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. This way you guys will see videos just like this one. So, so let's get into the second part of the video. So what we're going to do is we're going to take that 12 bar blues, same pattern. Alright? We're not going to change anything with the chord progression. What we're going to do is we're going to be adding another finger into here. So we're going to start on that A string.

All right? And what I'm going to do is we're going to be using our third finger. Now our third finger is going to start stretching over to this fourth string. So it's going to be one, a two.

You Guys hear that?

1, A, 2 and 3 and 4 and.

All right.

So you're basically doing two strums and then putting the third finger down. Two strums. Whoops. I put it on the right string, back to the open, just the normal chord and then the third finger back down. So it's basically if I were going to do this straight eighth notes, 1.

And 2 and 3 and 4. And that's all we're doing, 1 and 2 and.

Except I'm adding a shuffle to it.

How's that sound?

Okay, so now we're going to put this over our progression because for our D chord we're going to do the same thing.

And then the same thing for the E chord.

All right, you hear it now? So we've got one.

Down to D.

Back up to A.

Back to D.

And then we're going to jump up to E now.

To.

The D.

And then we got A.

And then this.

I'm just going to do straight up pattern. Okay, so it's going to sound like this all together, right?

So we got 1, A, 2 and 3, A 4 and.

To D.

To a.

To d.

Yeah.

Now here's the big jump to e.

D.

To a.

Come right back into a.

To d.

To a.

D.

Here's the big jump to e.

To d.

To a.

And there you have it. That's how to spice up your 12 bar blues. Very, very cool thing to try. Makes you feel like a real guitar player. I hope you guys enjoyed this lesson video. Make sure to give me a. Like a thumbs up is truly appreciated. If you really liked what I did here, YouTube is going to pop up a couple more videos over here. Make sure to go and check those out. Find something else that you guys are interested in. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.