Blues In G with Open Chords. This is an excellent easy 12 bar jam for you in the key of G with a nice bouncing country strum to help give your blues a little twang. Play along this easy Blues in C. It's the classic 12 bar pattern with turnaround. Chords: C F G7 Setting: drums, bass, ukulele For more informations and Blues licks on the ukulele, please visit www.uke4u.com.
The 12-bar blues using Roman numerals to represent chords in a key.Take a look at the figure. It consists of 12 measures and observes a particular scheme. Notice the use of Roman numerals instead of letter names, indicating that the progression is the same in every key.For example, if you play blues in E, then E is the I chord, A is the IV chord, and B or B7 is the V chord. So with the corresponding letters substituted for the Roman numerals, the progression looks like the following figure.
B7 replaces B because B7 is the easier of the two chords to play. Technically, you could play B as a barre chord on the second fret.Because the slashes ( /) leave some interpretation in what you’re playing, try this exercise with shuffle eighth notes (eighth notes that have a long-short rhythm scheme) in alternating downstrokes and upstrokes. The quick fourThe quick four is a variation on the 12-bar blues with a different second bar. Instead of staying on the I chord for four measures, you play a IV chord — for example, A in the key of E — in the second measure for one bar, and go back to the I chord for two bars.
The quick four provides an opportunity for variation and interest in an otherwise unbroken stretch of four bars of the same chord. The quick four happens just about as often as not in blues songs.
Some songs that use the quick-four method include “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Hide Away.”The quick four happens very soon after you start the song, so if you’re at a jam session, or are playing along with a song for the first time, you must be on your toes to anticipate its use. The turnaroundThe turnaround is the last two bars of the progression that point the music back to the beginning. At the end of the 12-bar blues, you can repeat the progression or end it. Most of the time you repeat the progression to play additional verses and solos.
To help get the progression ready for a repeat, employ a turnaround that sets up the repeat. At the most basic level, you can create a turnaround by just substituting a V chord for the I chord in the last measure.While the most basic application of a turnaround is just playing a V chord in the last bar, to most guitarists, a turnaround presents an opportunity to play a riff or lick. The following figure shows the last four bars of a 12-bar blues with a turnaround bar added.