Easy Blues Chords – Two Finger Tritones
This lesson shows you how to play easy two-note tritone blues chords. These chords make it easy for anyone to play blues backup guitar in any key.
In this lesson for beginner blues guitarists you’ll see how to play the 12 bar blues using easy tritone chord shapes with just two fingers. You’ll also learn how to find the tritone positions for the I, IV and V chords in any key.
The best way to see just how easy it can be to play a 12 bar blues with tritones is to try an example. The example below shows a 12 bar blues in A major. Try playing it, then read on to learn what tritones are and learn how to use them in other keys.
Easy Tritone Blues In A
Blues Tritones
I hope you tried the example. It wasn’t hard, was it?
Those easy little two note chords, tritones, use two of the most important notes in a dominant chord: the 3rd and the b7.
The 3rd determines the chord’s major or minor quality. Here the 3rds are all major. The b7 gives the chord its dominant flavour.
All the chords are played without a root. This might sound a little strange when you play them alone, but in a band or jam setting you’ll almost certainly have someone else around to play the root, the bass player for example.
The observant amongst you might notice that the notes come from the E7 bar chord shape on the A chords. On the D and E chords the notes are from the C7 shape.
The 3rd and b7 within these shapes are shown by the red notes in the chord diagrams below.
The great thing is that the three chords – I, IV, V – can be played on adjacent frets. Start by finding where to play the I chord – use the root note of the E bar shape on the 6th string as a guide.
Once you’ve located the I chord the IV and V are easy to find. Move down one fret from the I for the IV chord, move up one fret from the I for the V chord.
Tritones offer you an easy and great sounding way to play 12 bar blues guitar in any key. If you’re struggling to learn bar chords so you can play blues in any key then this trick will give you a great short cut.
Practice tritone blues in as many keys as you can. And then head off to the jam session where you’ll be able to play backup on any song.
Tags: blues chords
