Blues Forms Lesson
Learn the common chord progressions that drive most blues guitar songs.By Andrew DuBrock
There's an old saying that goes "you've got to pay your dues to play the blues," but it's not entirely clear what those dues are. Depending on whom you ask, "dues" can range from selling one's soul to living through a world of pain, suffering, and bad gigs. But the least sensational dues are perhaps the most important—the dues you pay through experience. By learning and practicing the scales and chord progressions behind blues songs, you gain the experience needed to play the blues with others and create your own authentic-sounding blues tunes.
Blues songs are everywhere. Everything from Cream's classic live version of "Crossroads" to Robert Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and even tunes in other genres—like the surf classic "Wipe Out," the melody section of the Glenn Miller Orchestra's big-band hit "In the Mood," and pop tunes like Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog"—all use blues progressions. One of the reasons that the blues are so universal is that blues songs tend to use just a few basic forms. If you're familiar with these forms, you can sit down with almost anyone and immediately play, without having to go over song forms or chords—just pick a key and let it fly!
In this lesson, we'll pay our dues by learning a few basic blues forms. When you're done, you should be able to follow along with most impromptu blues jams.
Blues Building Blocks: Chords
To play most blues songs, you need only three chords—the I, IV, and V of whatever key you're in. Example 1 shows the I, IV, and V chords in the key of E. These numbers aren't random; each chord's Roman numeral describes its relationship to the underlying key or scale. Example 2 shows how this works. In the key of E, all the chords are built from an E-major scale. E is the I chord in the key because it's built on the first note of this scale. The A and B chords are the IV and V chords, respectively, because they're built from the fourth and fifth notes of the E-major scale. (For other keys, see "I, IV, and V Chords in Popular Guitar Keys").
In addition to knowing which chords to use, it's also good to know what types of chords are common in any genre. In blues music, major chords work fine, but it's also very common to use dominant-seven chords—in the key of E, that would be E7, A7, and B7, as shown in Example 3 .