Your First Guitar Blues Song

In today’s tutorial we will learn our first blues song.

12 Bar Blues

The 12 bar blues is a specific chord progression that acts as the basis for countless songs. Not only is the 12 bar blues progression common to blues, it is frequently employed in rock, pop, country, folk and jazz songs.

In your first song, only two fingers are used (fingers 1 and 3). Once you learn the pattern in measure one, you just have to move it across a string to play it in D and E.

This piece uses the pull-off. An arched line connecting notes of different pitches indicates a pull-off or a hammer-on.

As you will recall from our previous tutorial on hammer-ons and pull-offs, to perform a pull-off, simply pick the higher pitched note and then sound the lower note with your fret-hand.

It’s best to place both fingers on the notes to be sounded and then pull-off the higher finger so that the lower note is heard. You do not pick the note that is pulled off; its sound is produced by your fret-hand.

All of the notes in this piece are eighth notes and are counted as 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +.