FUN & EASY 12 Bar Blues Guitar Lesson For Beginners

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. In this lesson, I'm going to be showing you a simple 12 bar blues. This is a super fun exercise that I teach beginner guitar students in my seven level guitar system because it helps give them a lot of confidence and it's also a lot of fun. I find a lot of students, when they're just getting started with the guitar, they're questioning like, can I really do this? And this exercise is going to show you how you can play a full blues song probably, probably within the next five to ten minutes. So stick around with me. I'm going to show you simply how to play through this. And then I'm going to show you how to add some spices in on the end. Let's get started.

All right, so we're going to start off with three very, very simple chords, all right? That I'm going to show you here. All you need is one finger to play these three different chords. The chords I'm going to be showing you is a very, very simple A chord, a D chord, and an E chord. All right? And this allows us to play what we call a 12 bar blues in the key of A. All right? And all a key is in music, it's just chords and notes that sound very, very good together. Okay? So we're going to use our first finger on this. And to find the A chord, we're going to find our open A string, which is our fifth string, okay? And we're going to put our first finger finger on the second fret of the fourth string. Okay? And we're going to try and play both of those strings at the same time. Okay? Now that might be tricky for you in the beginning, but just try focusing. We need to get both of those strings because if you just hit the top string, it's just going to sound like that. Okay? We need both of those strings.

So it's the A string and the D string.

Okay?

So that's a. If you move your finger up one this. Now the second fret on the fifth string and you play the open E string. We're gonna be playing the E chord. So it's gonna be the E string and the A string at the same time.

Good. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna move this first finger down two strings. So it's gonna be on our G string. And we're gonna play the G string with the open D string. And if you've been paying attention, you might have guessed that this is go chord.

Okay? Now if you're catching some extra Strings when you're playing these chords. So say you were playing your D chord and you're kind of hearing that B string buzz in. That's okay for now. Just do the best you can. And when you're practicing, you can work on really targeting just those two strings. So let's review that very quickly. We have the A chord.

We have the E, ch.

And we have the D chord.

Okay. So you're just moving this first finger within this second fret. Okay. As a beginner, the less things you have to focus on, the easier. Okay, I have a. I know there's a lot of guitar teachers that start.

You out with like, you know, the.

Full C chord, the full D chord, and it can be very, very frustrating. It's very hard to move one finger in the beginning, never mind two or three at the same time. And that's why this exercise is so much fun, because it just requires one finger. So now what we're going to do is we're going to play what we call a 12 bar blues form. We're going to take those three chords that we just learned, and we're going to put them together to create a song. Okay. And usually what we do is we play 12 chords. All right? And each of those chords are what we call a measure. Now, a measure in music. Just think of it as a dollar bill and four quarters. Okay? So there's four beats or four counts in this measure. Okay?

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.

So every time I counted a group of four, that's a measure in music. So in the 12 bar blues, we have 12 measures. And for the example we're going to be doing here, we're going to be playing two measures of A, two measures of D, two more measures of A, two more measures of D. Then we're going to play one measure of E, one measure of D, one measure of A, and one measure of E. Now, if you look at the diagram over there and you count up all those letters, you're going to see it adds up to 12. And that's why we have a 12 bar blues. Now, there are some variations on this form, but this is the one we're going to use for this example, just because I think it's a little bit more fun to play. So we're going to start very, very simple, and then we're going to add to it. If you stick around until the end, I'll show you some cool spices you can add. But just for the very, very beginner, all I want you to do we're just going to count to four and play our chords as written in the diagram. So we're going to start on A. So get your finger ready on the A chord. And I'm just going to play 1, 2, 3, 4.

And a 2, 3, 4. Again, a, 2, 3. Now move to d. 2, 3, 4, 3.

Back to a.

1, 2, 3, 4 again.

Now up to E.

To D.

To A.

And E.

We end on A. Now, the tricky part. You probably felt pretty good until you had to go jump from that E to the D chord. So that's something that can take a little bit of practice. But if you didn't nail it right out of the box, don't worry. You can just practice going from E.

To D, E to D, E to.

D. And then I would bring it back. So let's try it one more time. Okay, I'm not going to count. We'll light up the letters over there on the diagram for you. But I'm just going to do a count in a four. And we're going to do four strums per measure, starting on the A chord. All right, let's give it another go. Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4.

D.

Back to a.

To d.

Here's the jump to e.

To d.

Back to a.

E.

Even I hit a bad note on that. See, I've been playing guitar for a very, very long time, and I still make mistakes. So if you're making mistakes, don't worry. It's totally normal. All right? So there you go right there on my recording. Big mistake on the end there. We want to end on that A chord, and it'll sound really nice when you hit the chord correctly. So that is the foundation of this exercise. Okay? That's our starting point. What we're going to do next is we're going to go to level two, okay? Which is we're going to add in a shuffle rhythm, which is a very, very popular rhythm in the blues. Now, it is not super simple because I sometimes have students that have tricky with the timing. But we're going to break it down step by step. It's going to sound like this, all right?

Okay. So you're like, oh, that's already sounding like the blues. And don't worry, I have another spice.

That I'm going to show you in level three. But first, let's start with level two, because we have to get the shuffle down first. So the shuffle pattern here it is 1, a 2, a 3, 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a 3,. A 4. Okay? So that is the rhythm. It's almost like a gallop. And we have this long, short, long, short, long, short, long, long, short, long, short. Okay, so that's kind of what it sounds like. So let's just practice this on our A. Okay, so it's going to be one, a two, a three, a four, a.

One, a two, a three,.

Okay. And I should note these are all down picks. Your picking hand. Ready? One, a two, a three, a four.

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

On your own M.

Okay, so can you hear that? It's kind of like two quick downs. Okay? And then so it's that short, long, short, long, short, long.

One, a two, a three, a four, a one, a two, a three, A four, a one, A two, a three, a four or a one, a two. Here we go, an A.

Back to d.

Finally back to E.

To D.

To A.

To E.

And then we're going to end on that A. All right, so that's starting to sound a lot more like the blues, right? And that's the cool thing about that shuffle pattern is it really, really defines a lot of rhythms of the blues, a lot of blues songs. That's what you're going to hear. You're going to hear that shuffle rhythm. All right, again. Now, if you had trouble with that, don't worry. It sometimes it can take just a little bit of practice. And maybe what I'm going to show you Next in Level 3 will help you kind of dial it in a little bit more. So this is kind of the next step in this exercise, which is super, super fun. Okay? So stick with me here. This is going to be really, really cool. Now, we're going to be using more than one finger. We're going to stick with the same chords, but I'm going to start with my A chord. It's going to sound like this.

You're like, ooh. Okay, so now it's really starting to sound cool and fun. So I have my A chord, and what I'm doing is I'm reaching to the fourth fret with my third finger, okay? And that's why it's important that at this point, you got to be able to hit both of those strings.

Because if you only hit the A string, I'm gonna put my finger down, and you're not gonna hear any difference.

Okay? So let's break this down. And for those of you, I have some older students who maybe have arthritis, have trouble stretching their fingers. You can use your pinky. All right? If it's much more comfortable.

To use your pinky, use your pinky. That doesn't matter to me. I like to use my third finger. But if you have to use your pinky, makes no difference in the sound. Okay? Whatever is most comfortable for you. So let's take this. So what we're doing is we're putting our third finger down on the two and the four.

So it's 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, a.

Hear that? And I'll do with the pinky now. So we see with the pinky.

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

You probably heard my pinky is not as strong as my third finger, which is also why I like to use my third finger.

Okay?

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

And it's going to work the same for the other. So if we're on our E chord.

Okay, stretching out to that fourth fret and then the D chord, same thing.

Okay. So it's just going from the 2nd fret, 4th fret, 2nd fret, 4Fret, 2Fret, 4Fret. Okay. Let's take our time with this. All right? Go very. That's how slow I'm going to go. And if you're still just on the four down strums, stick with the four down strums. Okay? If you want to do a shuffle, you can do the shuffle with me.

Or if you feel like going to.

Level three with me, let's go to level three.

Okay, so we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 a 2, a 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a 3, a four to D. A 2, a 3, a 4th, a 1, a 2, A 3, a.

Back to A.

Up to d.

Here's the jump to e.

To d.

To a.

Now, if you found this 12 bar blues pattern really cool, you can go apply it to a song right now. Go watch this lesson over there, which is Eric Clapton's. Before you accuse me. We're going to take exactly what we learned in this lesson and apply it to a real life song. Go watch that lesson and have some more fun.