12 Bar Blues
12 Bar Blues is a pattern of chords which repeats every 12 bars. There are hundreds of well known songs based on this chord progression, i.e., they contain basically the same chords in the same order.
12 Bar Blues is common in many styles of music including Blues, Rock, Jazz, Country, Soul and Funk. Some well known songs which use this 12 bar chord pattern are:
- Original Batman TV Theme
- Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
- Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley
- Roll Over Beethoven - Chuck Berry
- Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley
- In the Mood - Glenn Miller
- Barbara Ann - The Beach Boys
- Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry
- Dizzy Miss Lizzy - The Beatles
- Red House - Jimi Hendrix
- The Jack - ACDC
- Ice Cream Man - Van Halen
The following 12 Bar Blues is in the key of G major and uses all of the chords you have learned so far.
This pattern of chords will probably sound familiar to you.
Instead of writing a chord symbol above each bar of music, it is common to write a symbol only when the chord changes, e.g., the first four bars of this Blues are all G7 chords. Once you can play this 12 Bar Blues, use the chords to accompany the next exercise, 2 String Blues.
The Whole Note
This is a whole note.
It lasts for four beats.
There is one whole note in one bar of * time.
2 String Blues introduces the whole note (or semibreve) in bar 12. It is worth four counts.
It is played on the first beat, and held for the remaining three, as indicated by the count.
