blues music history youtube

blues music history youtube

Fernanda Noronha


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Beginner Blues Piano Chords

A very popular genre of piano to learn is the Blues piano. This genre of music stems from other genres such as jazz and ultimately once you know that basics of Blues piano you will notice that other genres will come easy to play as well.

The most common Blues piano chord progression in known as the 12-Bar Blues. It gets its name from the progression lasting 12 bars and the actual chord progression is a natural sounding progression. By this I mean that the chord progression at the end sounds complete and finished although the progression may be repeated throughout the piece. One of the most well known uses of the 12-bar blues sound is the main pattern after the introduction in Glen Millar's ‘In the Mood', found in the main theme

The easiest way to learn the 12-Bar Blues is to break the progression into three parts, so each ‘section' last 4 bars and each bar lasts 4 beats. All 12-bar blues have the 4 over 4 time signature. I am going to presume that you already know a little about music, chord symbols and keys. So to start us off, most musicians will use 7th chords when playing the 12-bar blues and to make things easier, we're going to play the 12-bar blues progression in the key of ‘C'.

The first of the three sections is I-I-I-I, or C, C, C, C played on the first beat of every bar. The second section is IV-IV-I-I or F, F, C, C, again played on the first beat of every bar. Finally, the third section is V-IV-I-I or G, F, C, C, played on the first beat of the bar. Therefore, the complete pattern is as follows remembering to play the relative note on the 1st beat of every 4:

C | C | C | C | F | F | C | C | G | F | C | C |

To make it sound more ‘bluesy”, you need to add the 7th chord pattern in each bar with each beat of the bar having a note of the 7th chord. I'll explain. The 7th chord of C is C, E, G, Bb, the 7th chord of F is F, A, C, Eb, and the 7th chord of G is G, B, D, F. Therefore, the pattern will be the same with a more blues sound:

C E G Bb | C E G Bb | C E G Bb | C E G Bb | F A C Eb | F A C Eb | C E G Bb | C E G Bb | G B D F | F A C Eb | C E G Bb | C E G Bb |

From the above, you can see that we have still kept the 12-bar pattern but made the sound more ‘bluesy'.

Finally, to give it that even more extra bluesy feel we are going to add a new note in the pattern (the 6th of the chord) and ascend and descend, again playing a note on every beat. Therefore, the new pattern will be:

C E G A | Bb A G E | C E G A | Bb A G E | F A C D | Eb D C A | C E G A | Bb A G E | G B D F | F A C Eb | C E G A | Bb A G E C |

Once you have mastered the 12-bar blues pattern it is recommended that you learn the same pattern in other keys and being able to play it naturally without thinking. This will ultimately give your blues piano ability a better grounding.