This short lesson shows two essential fretboard patterns you can use to play the blues chord progression in any key.

If you’ve already studied the 12 bar blues progression then you’ll know that it uses three chords known as the I, IV and V chords. You can play these chords in any key by following one of the simple patterns shown below.

To use these patterns you need to know how to play at least one of the following chord types:

* An E7 shape bar chord with its root on the sixth string and an A7 shape bar chord with its root on the fifth string.

* The blues shuffle pattern using two note chords.

These shapes are shown later in the lesson as a reminder, or introduction if you don’t know them yet.

I Chord on the 6th String

Start your blues with a I chord using the E shape with its root on the sixth string. You can play the IV and V chords with the A shape that has its root on the 5th string.

The IV chord’s root is on the 5th string at the same fret as the I chord. The V chord has its root two frets up from this. The relative positions of the chord roots are shown in the diagram below.

I Chord on the 5th String

Alternatively, you can start your blues with an A shape chord. The diagram below shows what the pattern looks like when you start with a fifth string root I chord.

This time the IV and V chords are E shape bar chords with their roots on the 6th string. The IV chord is found two frets back from the I chord and the V chord is at the same fret, right above the I chord root.

The Chord Shapes

Below are diagrams of the sixth and fifth string root chords you can use with these patterns.

You can use the two notes on the lowest two strings of each chord as the starting position for two-note blues shuffle chords.

Use This Knowledge To Play 12 Bar Blues In Any Key

To use these positions to play the 12 bar blues in any key you have to memorize the names of the notes on the 6th and the 5th string of your guitar.

Find the root note for the key you want on either the fifth or the sixth string and then apply one of the patterns above.

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.

Would you like to learn to play easy blues guitar with only one chord position, without moving all over the fretboard? Well, here’s a lesson that shows you how to play cool sounding 12 bar blues guitar with only one easy beginner chord position.

12 Bar Blues Recap

First up, you need to know the 12 bar blues pattern. If you don’t know it already then let’s take a quick look at the chords normally used to play it. We’ll take a look at an example in the key of E major, a common key for blues guitar songs. The pattern, not surprisingly, contains 12 bars like this.

/ E7 / E7 / E7 / E7 / A7 / A7 / E7 / E7 / B7 / A7 / E7 / B7 /

Now you know what the 12 bar blues looks like let’s see how this pattern can be played with only one chord position.

D7 Chord Position

To play our really easy 12 bar blues we’re going to use the simple D7 chord shape shown in the chord diagram below. This is a chord that any beginner guitar player learns early so shouldn’t be too difficult.

1  |---|-3-|---|
2  |-1-|---|---|
3  |---|-2-|---|
4  |---|---|---|
5  |---|---|---|
6  |---|---|---|

Finger the chord by placing your index finger on the second string at the first fret. Then place your second finger on the third string at the second fret. Finally put your third finger down on the first string at the second fret too.

Notice how your finger tips make a little triangle formation on the bottom three strings? For this easy blues progression you’ll need to strum or pluck only these three bottom strings.

Practice grabbing that chord position to get comfortable with it, then we can move on learn how to play a 12 bar blues with it.

12 Bar Blues In E With D7 Chord Shape

To play the 12 bar blues we’ll take the D7 chord shape and move it up and down over only three frets. We start with the E7 chord which you play by placing the D7 shape two frets higher – your first finger at the base of the triangle should be on the third fret of the second string.

We’re going to make the other two chords of the 12 bar blues – A7 and B7 – really easy to play by using a little trick called a flat fifth chord substitution. You don’t have to worry about what this is or why it works for now, just use and enjoy it.

The A7 chord substitution is played by sliding the E7 chord down just one fret. Your index finger should be on the second fret of the second string. The B7 is played by moving the E7 position up one fret, index finger on the fourth fret of the second string.

Using these chord substitutions has the neat advantage of putting all three chords on adjacent frets, and even better with exactly the same chord shape. All you have to do is move this shape down one fret or up one fret from the starting position on E7, things could hardly be any easier, could they?

Now you can enjoy playing the 12 bar blues progression in the key of E major with this easy blues guitar chord trick.

This article for beginner guitar players shows how to play the 12 bar blues progression with easy open position blues chords.

Blues guitar is great fun to play and is the basis of musical styles like rock, soul, R&b, funk and jazz. Learning to play the blues gives you valuable skills that will help you learn many other styles.

Yet the heart of the blues can be learned with only the few simple chords and the basic blues song structure shown in this lesson. Ready? OK, let’s take those first steps towards playing thousands of blues songs…

Blues Chords

Blues guitar uses distinctive sounding chords called dominant 7th chords. These are denoted by the number 7 following the chord name, e.g. E7 denotes a dominant 7th E chord.

The dominant 7th chord is simply a normal major or minor chord with a 7th note two frets below the root note added. For example, you add a D note to an E major chord to form an E7, a G note to an A chord gives you A7, and so on.

You can add the 7th note to many chord positions by finding the root note and changing the fingering to play the note two frets below it. The chord diagrams below show you easy open blues chords in the key of A major.

E7            A7                D7
e 0|---|---|  0|---|---|---|    |---|-3-|
B 0|---|---|   |---|-2-|---|    |-1-|---|
G  |-1-|---|  0|---|---|---|    |---|-2-|
D 0|---|---|   |---|-1-|---|   0|---|---|
A  |---|-2-|  0|---|---|---|   x|---|---|
E 0|---|---|  x|---|---|---|   x|---|---|

You can try to find the dominant 7th note for other open chords you know. Simply find a string where the root note occurs and change fingering to play the note two frets lower on that string. Remember that the root note occurs two or even three times in open chord forms.

Alternatively, you can find a string where the 5th note of the chord occurs and play the note three frets up from it.

Now you know how to play simple blues chords in open positions let’s look at how they are used in songs.

12 Bar Blues Progression

Most blues songs use a 12 bar chord progression that is quite easy to learn. Once you master this progression you’ll be able to play about 90% of blues songs with it.

The blues progression uses chords based on the first, fourth and fifth scale degrees. These are commonly known as the I, IV and V chords. Here is the 12 bar blues progression in the key of A major, the I, IV, V chords are A7, D7 and E7 respectively.

|  A7  |  X  |  X  |  X  |  D7  |  X  |
|  A7  |  X  | E7  | D7  |  A7  | E7  |

As you learn and memorize this progression you should aim to memorize the chord changes in terms of I, IV and V chords. If you do this then it will be easy to play the blues in a variety of keys.

You can play the blues in four popular keys – A, E, D and G – with only five chords. The table below shows the I, IV and V chords for these four major keys commonly played on the guitar.

Key of E: E7 (I), A7 (IV), B7 (V)
Key of A: A7 (I), D7 (IV), E7 (V)
Key of D: D7 (I), G7 (IV), A7 (V)
Key of G: G7 (I), C7 (IV), D7 (V)

Practice the chord forms one key at a time and memorize the 12 bar blues progression. With these two simple pieces of knowledge you can have fun playing along to many blues songs or join in at your local blues jam.