Have Fun Playing Over ANY Blues Song with THIS Step-by-Step Pattern

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. In this guitar lesson we're going to be going over a simple way to play along with a 12 bar blues. I'm going to show you a really cool trick here. Let's get into the lesson.

So the great thing about 12 Bar Blues is that it is a repetitive pattern that gets played over and over again. So I'm going to show you a little shape that you can move around all over the guitar and play along with pretty much almost any blues song that's, you know, in this type of rhythm. So, so I'm going to break this lesson up into three parts, which is first, we're going to talk briefly about what a 12 bar blues is. Second, I'm going to show you what this little pattern is and how we play it. And I'm also going to show you a little turnaround that you can add in for a little bit of extra spice. And then at the end I'm going to show you how you can apply this to different songs depending on which key you're in. So briefly, let's just go over 12 bar blues. It's a pattern that repeats itself. So it's 12 bars, meaning it's 12 measures of music. And when you start at the beginning and then you get to the end, you just go back to the beginning. And what we're going to be doing in this example I'm going to be showing you in the key of A. But I will show you how to play it in other keys as well. Now the key of A is just a family of chords that go well together in blues. That's going to be the A chord, the D chord and the E chord. And often those are referred to as the 1, 4 and 5 chord. Okay. The A is the I chord because it makes it sound like we're done, like we're going home. Alright, so the first four measures are going to be played over that A chord. Okay? So we'll have four measures of A. Then we're going to move to the IV chord for two measures. So we'd be playing over a D chord. Then we're going to go back to the A chord for two measures. Then we would go to the V chord which is going to be our E. Okay. And then we're going to go back to D and then you would end on the A chord for two measures. Or we can do a turnaround. I'm going to show you how to do it both ways. Now why is this important that we know what chords we're playing over. Because when I show you this little shape in a moment, we're going to be lining it up with the note. So our first finger, that first note we're going to play. If we're playing over an A chord, is going to be an A note. Okay, Right below that. So that was the fifth fret on the top string. Right below that, the fifth fret on the A string. That is a D note. And if you move up to the seventh fret on the A string, that's going to be our E string. So you can see why it's important to know what chords we're using, because we want to line this riff up correctly. So fifth fret on the top string is a. Fifth fret on the A string is D. Slide it up two frets. We have the E on the A string. Okay? So that's at the seventh fret. So let me show you this little shape we're going to be using. And we're going to be doing a shuffle rhythm. Okay? Shuffle rhythm is 1, A2, A3, A4, A1, A2, A3, a4. So if I played it on the guitar, just this one note, it would sound like this.

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

Okay? So this little lick is going to sound like.

With that shuffle pattern.

Okay? So we're just going to be playing that little shuffle pattern. So let me show you what I did with this little shape here. So we're starting on the fifth fret. Ok? That A string. And we're doing.

Two picks, okay? Two pick patterns. And I'm going to use alternate picking. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So we've got. So now what we're going to do is we're going to go from five. We're going to come down two strings on the seventh fret. This is actually our octave.

So they're both A notes. Just a little fun fact for you guys to know. They're both A notes. So it's going to be 5, 5, 7, 7. Okay?

Okay. And then we're going to take the first finger. We're going to come back to the five again on that D string. Okay? So so far we've got 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 5, 5. And then we're going to come back up to the A string on the seventh fret. Okay? And we're going to do that again twice. So it's 5, 5, 7, 7, 5, 5, 7, 7. Now if we put the Shuffle pattern. Here's what it's going.

So you can kind of hear that shuffle. So we're going to do that pattern four times. Because remember, I said we're going to play an A chord four times. So you're going to do this pattern. One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Okay, what's next? Remember, if we go back to what I told you about 12 Bar Blues, the next chord in the pattern is going to be a D chord. If someone else is playing the guitar, it'll be a D chord. So we're gonna come to that D note. We're gonna take this pattern. We're gonna do the same thing, except we're starting on the fifth fret on the A string. So it's gonna be five. Five. We're gonna go to the seventh fret on the G string, okay? So we're moving up two frets, down two strings, okay? Same string, five, five. And then up one string, back to seven. Okay? So it's.

So you would play that twice. So we said we're going to go back to the A chord twice, right? So we're going to hop back up to that fifth fret on the top string.

And play that twice. All right, so we did pattern number one over A. We did that four times. Then we move down the pattern to a D note, and we played it twice, and then we brought it back up to the A. All right? So the last four measures is where the most movement happens in 12 bar blues. So we're going to be moving to the five chord, okay? So this is the E note. So we're coming up to the seventh fret on the A string, okay? And we're going to do the same pattern. It's just this. It's one pattern. We're just moving it to where we need it to go to line up with the chords. Okay? So. So we're starting on an E note because we're playing over an E chord. And it's going to be seven. Seven. Up two frets down two strings would be the ninth fret on the G string. Seven twice, up one string to nine.

Okay, so we're just going to do this once here.

Now we're going to come back to D. Play that.

And then back to A.

You play that twice. And guess what? We just went through the entire 12 bars, which means we would go back to the beginning. So let me play through so you guys can hear it on all 12 bars. A2, A3, A4M.

All right, so here's the cool little turnaround. What it's going to sound like.

Okay, just a cool little line that leads us back into.

So how are we going to do that? Well, on the end of the 12 bar blues, those last two measures, where we would usually play over the A chord, we're going to erase those and we're going to put this little, this little turnaround in here. So it's going to sound like this. We're going to start on that A note, fifth fret, right? We're going to go five, five, and then we're going to chromatically. Chromatically means you hit all of the notes. Alright. Not playing a scale. We're just going up one note at a time. We're starting on the A string. Fourth fret.

Twice, fifth fret twice, sixth fret twice. And then the seventh fret we're going to play four time.

Okay, you could do it four times. You could do it three times. It'll have the same effect, but it's going to be 5, 5, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7. You.

Okay? Kind of did like a little staccato thing where I took my finger off the string and I muted it and then held the note.

Kind of like that one. But the one I'm showing you here is.

Okay, so you can do three notes or four notes, whichever one you like better. I think four notes is going to be on the, on the tab there. But now when you're coming out of from the 5 chord, that E.

To D.

Now you're going to go.

Four and then start the whole thing again.

So you don't have to do that every time, but you can do it maybe every other time just to change things up and give you a way to get back into the beginning of this progression without always just having to do that little shape that I taught you. Okay, so that's what we call turnaround. So that is one option for you guys to get back to the beginning. All right, Lauren, great. You showed me how to do this in one key. How do I do it in any key? Well, the key. Ha ha. Get it? I know, sorry. The key to this is knowing the notes on the top string of the guitar. So if you saw there was a pattern to what we were doing. I showed you the pattern that we were playing, but there was also a pattern to the notes. So let's say we're going to play in the key of G. You don't even. Lauren, I don't know what the key of G is. You don't even have to know what the key of G is if you just know where the G note is on the top string, that's the third fret on your guitar.

Did you hear that? All I'm doing is I'm starting on what we call the root note, the home note. Okay, G. I'm going to play that pattern four times, then I'm going to move down one string. Okay? That is going to be our four chord. You don't even need to know that this is a C note. You just need to know that you're going to move your finger down one. So G down one string, play your shape.

And then come back up to the G.

Okay? And then the five is right here. It's this D note. You don't need to know that that's a D note. All you need to know is that it is up two frets and down one string from that root note. So the one is the top string right below it is our four. And then up two frets is our five. Lauren, I want to play in the key of B.

Find the B note on the top string, which is going to be the seventh fret of the guitar.

And then you get your five up here.

Okay, Lauren, I'm going to play it in E. You could play it, you could play it open, it's a little bit different. Or you could play it up here at the 12th fret.

Hope you guys can see this. It's just a pattern. And you literally can play in every single key. Because on these top string, this top string is every note of the musical Alphabet. Okay, we have open string e. Or the 12th fret here is e. Then we have f, second fret, f sharp, third fret, g, fourth fret, g sharp, a, a sharp, b at the seventh fret, c, c sharp, D, D sharp, and then E at the octave. So you don't have to know a lot of music theory to be able to apply this. You just need to know the first chord. If someone says, what are you playing? Well, I'm playing 12 bar blues in G. Perfect third fret. Let's go. Okay. I'm playing 12 bar blues in a great fifth fret. I know where I'm going. Okay? And that's why. And the walk downs, the turnarounds will be the same.

Turnarounds will work just as fine too. Okay. So that's why the only one is the caveat here is if you play an F.

You have to use an open string. But that's okay. Most of it, it's going to apply pretty much the same. It's all patterns. And now you have the ability to play over a 12 bar blues no matter what key you're in and have a lot of fun with it. So there you go guys. Hope you enjoyed this lesson. YouTube's going to pop up a couple more videos over there. Go check those out and hope to see you in a lesson real soon.