Blues Guitar Lesson – Play 12 Bar Blues in All Keys

In the Blues Guitar Chords, we have talked about the basic chords to use in blues guitar and basic 12 bar blues guitar progression. How do we apply the 12 bar blues progression to the key you want to play? You can find it from some blues guitar lessons, but to save you time I will share the tips and tricks to play 12 bar blues in any key you want.

First Lets go back to the basic 12 bar progression

I7 | I7 | I7 | I7 |

IV7| IV7| IV7| IV7|

V7 | I7 | I7 | V7, I7 |


Let’s look at Key of E which is the very common key to play in blues. The I7 in Key of E is E7 chord, IV7 in E is A7 and V7 is B7, so the E 12 bar blues is like this:

E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 |

A7 | A7 | A7 | A7 |

B7 | E7 | E7 | B7, E7 |

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Now if we want to play this progression in Key of A, how do you find out what chords to use? It’s easy, look at A major scales.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

A B #C D E #F #G A

The I7 in A is A7, IV7 in A is D7 and V7 in A is E7. Isn’t it easy?

So the A 12 bar blues is

A7 | A7 | A7 | A7 |

D7 | D7 | D7 | D7 |

E7 | D7 | D7 | E7, A7 |

Actually, you don’t need to remember all the name of the blues guitar chords. You just need to remember the grade of the chords. Because all the chords are based on the grades in the key. Actually this is the skill that all blues guitar lessons should teach to beginners. However, I don’t see it from many blues guitar lessons, so I share this tip here.

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If you are serious about playing blues guitar then you should consider about a systematic blues guitar lesson like Learn and Master Blues Guitar instead of those free guitar lessons online. It can help you to learn blues guitar step by step and nothing will be missed about blues guitar. You can check out the review of Learn and Master Blues Guitar on this site.