Learn How To Easily Play Along To Any 12 Bar Blues Song On Guitar
If you want to learn how to play the blues on guitar then you’re up for several months if not several years of practice before you can play along note for note to your favourite blues guitar records.
Don’t let this dishearten you though because there is a little-known blues guitar secret that you can use to play along to your favourite blues songs easily.
This guitar hack is so easy that you’ll be able to play a blues song even if it’s your first day of playing the guitar.
The best part is, you only need one finger!
Grab your guitar and get ready for the easiest blues guitar lesson that you’ll ever take.
The Best Beginner Blues Guitar Lesson You’ll Ever Learn
In a previous article, I taught you how you can play along with any blues song using just one finger.
The special shape I taught you allowed you to bar your finger across three strings and play a minor chord. All you had to do was move the minor chord to frets 5, 10 and 12 following the sequence of the 12 bar blues progression.
This resulted in you being able to play along to a Minor 12 Bar Blues on guitar, with just one finger.
If you haven’t read that article then I recommend you take the time to read about my one-finger minor blues guitar lesson before going any further because the ideas presented in this lesson build upon those concepts.
At the bare minimum, you’ll need to know how to follow the 12 Bar Blues progression outlined in the image below.
How To Play The Blues On Guitar
In order to play a 12 Bar Blues on guitar using just one finger we need to learn a new chord shape.
The secret guitar chord shape we will learn today is the 2nd Inversion Major Triad using string 2-4.
While that sounds very complex, it’s actually very easy. All we need to do is bar our index finger across strings 2, 3 & 4 at the given fret.
Look at the shape below:
If you play this shape at fret 2 then you can see that it is part of the A Major chord.
If you move this shape anywhere on the guitar fretboard, it takes on the name of whichever note falls under your first finger relevant to the third string.
This means that :
- if you play the shape at fret 7 where the D note is, you get a D Major Chord.
- if you play the shape at fret 9 where the E note is, you get an E Major Chord
- if you play the note at fret 12 where the G note is, you get a G Major Chord.
You can play any major chord (including sharps and flats) by simply moving this shape horizontally across the fretboard. It’s much easier than learning different shapes for each chord, and much less physically demanding than bar chords.
Easy Blues Guitar Lesson For Beginners
Now that you know how to play a special Major chord you can move anywhere on the guitar, it’s time to put it into action and use it to play a blues.
If we chose the key of A, the chords we need to play are A, D & E.
In order to play A we move our chord shape to fret 2, then move to fret 7 for D and fret 9 for E.
Then you simply change chords as dictated by the 12 Bar Blues Progressions:
A – D – A – A
D – D – A – A
E – D – A – E
The Best Online Blues Guitar Lessons
The best way to learn how to play blues guitar is by taking blues guitar lessons from a professional guitar teacher.
One of the best ways to find a good teacher is to search for Guitar Lessons Near Me on your favourite search engine and then make inquiries with the top 3 guitar instructors who come up.
If there are no good options in your area, then consider taking online blues guitar lessons with me. There are a wealth of free resources on my youtube channel including an accompanying video lesson for this article.
Playing The Guitar Should Be Fun And Easy
Learning how to play the guitar (especially blues music) should be fun and easy.
If you’re having trouble with learning how to play the blues or any other difficulties with your guitar playing, then I recommend you reach out for help.
In this day and age of the internet and technology, there are so many resources out there that you will never run out of things to learn, but you can get stuck in the trap of perpetual learning without ever stopping to master anything.
In addition to this, youtube videos can’t give you feedback on your playing, which is crucial for beginners in order to develop great technique and good habits.
If you live in Melbourne and are looking for a guitar teacher then I highly recommend swinging by one of our two studio locations where you can get a free trial lesson where we evaluate your guitar playing and give you an instant fix on the most obvious problem that needs addressing.
Practising Your New Blues Guitar Chords
Now that you know not one but two secret movable chord shapes you can play both a major blues and a minor blues on your guitar.
It’s important to get really comfortable in the key of A first. Once you can do this I recommend you try learning the Key of E.
80% of the songs you play on guitar will be in the key of A and E (or Am and Em) so it really pays to get good at these keys.
Other popular keys for Guitarists to play in are C, D, F, for rock players and Bb, Eb and Ab for jazz players.
Continue to practice your guitar in these keys using our one-finger shapes. As this becomes easy and your skills improve you can start using more difficult chords until you’re playing along to what you hear on the original recordings.
Summarising Our One-Finger Blues Guitar Lesson
So that brings us to the end of our One Finger Major Blues Guitar Lesson
After completing this lesson you should be able to:
- Have learned and memorised the movable one-finger major chord
- Be able to play an A Major, D Major and E Major using the new chord shape
- Be able to play along to a Major Blues in the Key of A using the new movable guitar chords
- Know how to use the chords to play a blues in other keys.
The most important thing you can do from here is practise!
Take what you have learned and use it in your playing right away!
Once you get the hang of the basics, move to a new key.
And of course, if you get stuck, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for help!
Happy Practising!
About The Author – Michael Gumley
Michael Gumley is the owner and head teacher of Melbourne Guitar Academy, Australia’s #1 provider of Blues Guitar Lessons In Melbourne.
He has written over 12 books on learning guitar, created the Guitar Dojo Online which hosts over 50 courses on every guitar topic you could imagine, and trains other guitar teachers how to become better teachers and business owners in his Six Figure Guitar Teacher Program.
If you’re looking to improve your guitar playing, look no further than lessons with Michael and his team of teachers at Melbourne Guitar Academy.
