Discount Musical instruments - By 2Kool4Skool

Learn To Play the 12 Bar Blues

with chord diagrams and tablature for guitar 

Learn the 12 bar blues   ©2kool4skool.com  2008

Visit http://cooldiscountinstruments.com/lessons.html  for a free video demonstrating how to play this song, how to read chord diagrams, how to read TAB music, and for more lessons.

Below are a set of chords that you will need to learn in order to play this version of the 12 bar blues
The top horizontal line in the grid for each chord is the nut of the guitar. The Horizontal lines below represent the first 6 frets of the guitar. The Vertical lines represent the strings. The low E (fattest) string is on the far left.  The “0”  or “X” directly above each grid tell you whether to strum the strings or not for strings that do not have fingering. The numbers at the bottom of the grid represent your fingers (see the key below). Place your fingers on the fretboard just behind the fret corresponding to the black dots on the grid and the numbers. The gray dots are optional finger placements for different sounding versions of the same chord. Please visit www.cooldiscountinstruments.com/lessons.html for additional information on how to play chords.

This is the TAB music for a version of the 12 bar blues. TAB is a type of sheet music for stringed instruments that is easier to read than standard sheet music. Each line represents a string of the guitar. The bottom line is the low E string. The numbers represent the fret position that you place your fingers on. The space between the vertical lines represents one “bar” (often called a measure) or 4 regular beats (quarter notes). Just like when you hear the drummer count off the beginning of a song with “one, two, three, four..” and then the band starts playing. Those four counts equal one measure. You will see that the are 8 beats in each of our measures in this song. That is because our song uses eighth notes. Two notes are played in the time it takes to play one quarter note.  At the top of the lines are the chord names. You can choose to strum the chords for each measure instead of playing the notes on the TAB lines, or you can have a friend play one part while you play the other.  When you get to the end (the two thick vertical lines) go back to the beginning and start all over again. In the 11th measure, you will see that there are a lot of chords that change up fast. You can just strum the E chord all the way through that measure.  This may seem a bit overwhelming to a beginner, but trust us, you can do it.  All it takes is a little practice and you’ll be amazed at how fast you learn.

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Visit http://cooldiscountinstruments.com/lessons.html  for a free video demonstrating how to play this song, how to read chord diagrams, how to read TAB music, and for more lessons.