The eflat in the c blues scale makes it sound minor, but the scale is. With that in mind, well be in the key of e blues through this entire series. Lets take a look at how the basic blues changes look from a chord name standpoint. I havent encountered a chord progression yet that didnt fit with the. Piano pentatonic blues scales overview with pictures. Boston scored huge with the viiviv progression in peace of mind key of e. The classic tbone walker tune is a mustknow, and the progression in fig. Bb major blues scale charts for piano music motivated. I iv v eb ab bb i vi iv v eb cm ab bb ii v i fm7 bb7 ebmaj7 heres a diagram of the e flat major key signature and the notes of the e flat major scale. This structure, that probably is more or less as common as the standard, includes an early chord change to create more variation. Guitar chords the complete guide with charts, how tos.
Nov 07, 2016 d sharp or e flat major history lesson. But there are a few main differences between these two blues forms that we need to take a look at. Jun 25, 2011 so now anytime youre in front of a lead guitar player you are cool, confident and prepared because youve mastered these 3 juicy blues chord progressions. The minor blues is built in a similar fashion to the i iv v blues chord progression that we looked at earlier in this series of lessons. Introduction in this lesson, you will learn about the chords used in the 12 bar blues chord progression. Follow these and your chord progression will definitely work. A tip is to use the left hand for a chord and play notes from the scale with the right. Remember that your playing style can also affect the emotion of a chord progression. For example, if you want to use all major chords you can simply take the chords a, d, and e, plug them into the 12bar blues formula and voila, youve got a blues chord progression. Learn how to use chord progressions simplifying theory. Apr 01, 2020 you can play the blues with really any type of chord. The tones in the recommended chords are also within the e. The most notable difference between this progression and the basic 12bar blues occurs in measures seven and eight with the ascending and. Learn all the guitar chords, how to read guitar chords, and how to play guitar chords.
We cover blues chord progressions, the 12 bar blues, and stepbystep instructions for each blues chord. The ivchord shares tones with the ichord and is somewhat alike. We also designed a guitar chords chart for beginners. This page recommends chords for each tone in the e.
Musicians have come up with thousands of variations and sophisticated elaborations on the 12bar blues chord progression. Notice how the tonal quality changes when first inversion is selected. However, sometimes a dominant 7th 5 chord is used to create more tension before the return home to the minor tonic. There are several standard chord progressions in blues music, and they all use dominant seventh chords based on the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of the major scale. The blues progression and the blues scale improvisation. Folk and blues tunes frequently use the mixolydian scale, which has a flat seventh degree, altering the position of the three major chords to i. These chords are so called as they are rooted on the e and a strings respectively.
The tonic chord of a blues is a dominant 7 chord, a fact that doesnt fit very well in traditional music theory. Common chord progressions in the key of e flat major are as follows. The solution below shows the eb blues scale, on the piano, treble clef and bass clef since the key of eb appears on the circle of fifths diagram as both a major and minor key, the lesson steps explain both ways of constructing this blues scale for this key. This adds some nice voice leading into the ii chord. It is usually in 44 4 crotchet beats per bar and uses 1 chord per bar with 12 bars in total thus the 12 bar blues. Notice the use of roman numerals instead of letter names, indicating that the progression is the same in every key. These charts highlight the notes and chords of bb blues scale. To improvise in borrowed chords is simple, it is just to identify where the borrowed chord came from and play the scale of this chord. The last blues progression youll look into is named after charlie parker and is found in one of his most famous compositions, blues for alice reflecting the bebop love of iivs, this progression is full of various iiv progressions in a number of different keys the tune starts and ends with an fmaj7 chord, which is odd for a blues progression, but it does help to make these. Right above the chords, there is a tempo button with the default setting of 120 bpm beats per minute set. In example 1 below, a 12 bar blues progression is shown in the key of g, using open position dominant 7th chords, the type of chord typically associated with a bluesy sound. The only 3 chords you need to master the blues on piano. The top 50 mustknow list of the most commonly called jazz blues tunes.
However, you could also use the relative minor, which in the case of. For example, if you play blues in e, then e is the i chord, a is the iv chord, and b or b7 is the v chord. Oct 30, 2011 easy guitar e blues chord progression gary shepherd. Inversions are a great way to add interest to your chords. Weve compiled the 2 best guitar chords chart that exists online. And no traditional western scale has three adjacent chromatic notes, the blues scales f, fsharp and g. For example, if the major scale of c, which gives the three chords c, f. For the moment, you need a compatible controller korg or native instruments drum pad, but i will try to develop an ios or android app that could replace the phys. Blues guitar chords comprehensive blues chord chart.
Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in western musical tradition from the common practice era of classical music to the 21st century. This way you will have a wider array of progressions. The standard 12bar blues progression has three chords in it the 1 chord, the 4 chord, and then the 5 chord. A love song chord progression made in captain chords. To read them, you will need to have the free adobe reader program installed on your. Easy guitar e blues chord progression gary shepherd. When you see a group of blues musicians play together, everyone magically seems to know.
You can improvise on just the chord tones and that is a good place to start. And despite hearing the same small collection of them over and over again, they always seem to sound or at least feel different to us. During the last two lessons we discussed the blues click here to learn about the 12 bar blues if you havent read this lesson yet and now after we added the seventh note to the chords check it out in the blues chords lesson were ready to add some chord progression to the plain blues in order to spice it up a little bit. Next, pick a key that you feel comfortable playing in. Most blues chord progressions are 12 bars long, although there are also 8, 14, 16, 24 or more bar blues changes. Being able to play the blues is a great tool for guitar players and musicians in general to get together, jam, explore, evolve and have a great time. These 12 bars can be broken down into three 4bar sections. For example, in a song like eight days a week by the beatles, the chords of d, e, g coincide with the melody that john lennon sings underneath the chords. Lets play the diatonic cycle in c minor same notes as eb major. The basic blues progression uses 3 chords the tonic i or the chord that the song is centered on, the dominant v or the chord based on the fifth step of the tonic scale, and the subdominant iv or the chord based on the fourth step of the tonic scale. Taking the chords c f g mentioned for a blues in c, and considering a c pentatonic minor scale with them c e. Chord progressions are designed to serve as a harmonic base for the melody of a song. For the sake of brevity, ill only look at playing blues in the key of c. Welcome to a new episode in our chord of the week series, where we share a new guitar chord, explore its history and relevance, talk about how its played on the guitar, and enjoy a few popular songs and chord progressions in the key of its major scale.
In other words, we only change the 1 and 4 chords to minor. How to write chord progressions songwriting basics music. There is one more kind of jazz blues you should know. Blues chord progressions 12, 8 and 16 bar examples. The turnaround at the end now has a vi chord added in bar 11. In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression is a succession of chords. The two main barre chord forms used in blues are the e and a form or shape. Welcome to a new episode in our chord of the week series, where we share a new guitar chord, explore its history and relevance, talk about how its played on the guitar, and enjoy a few popular songs and. Aug 17, 20 the minor blues is built in a similar fashion to the i iv v blues chord progression that we looked at earlier in this series of lessons. To make our chord progression faster or slower, there are two options. Free stuff national jazz workshop a summer jazz camp at. Aug 29, 2019 chord progressions are designed to serve as a harmonic base for the melody of a song. First, is the type of chords used in each of these progressions.
Blog about contact login mastery program login old. It is always good to emphasize the 3rd and 7th of the chord because those tones identify what kind of chord it is. When playing a twelve bar blues in the key of bb, use the bb blues scale anywhere in the chord progression. Memories, rebellious, sad, simple, simple 2, twelve bar blues, wistful.
The basic blues progression uses 3 chords the tonic or the chord that the song is centered on, the dominant or the chord based on the fifth step of the tonic scale, and the subdominant or the chord based on the fourth step of the tonic scale in the example below, we use the key of f major. Beyond the basic 736 chord progression, there are fanciful variations that. I always think it is important to learn broader patterns like cadences, substitutions, common reharmonizations, in order to generalize chord progressions. Playing the 12 bar blues chord progression in all 12 keys 5. You can play the blues with really any type of chord. In theory is easy, but in practice you should be thinking that this is hard, because we have to identify fast what was the borrowed mode to know which tonality or scale to use.
Click that button, and a menu of preset tempos will appear. The solution below shows the eb blues scale, on the piano, treble clef and bass clef since the key of eb appears on the circle of fifths diagram as both a major and minor key, the lesson steps explain both ways of constructing this blues scale for this key the 1st construction, using the major scale, starts at lesson 3 the 2nd construction, using the minor pentatonic. A survey of common 12bar blues progressions would not be complete without the inclusion of the stormy monday changes. For example, an a minor blues progression would typically be. The blues progression and the blues scale dan haerle. Now that we have a basic 12 bar blues, lets take a look at all of the options that chordpulse has to offer. Its important for every serious pianist to know the basic 736 chord progression. You can use either of these positions for the 1, 4 or 5 chords in a blues progression, but its most common to use the e form for the 1 chord and the a form for the 4 and 5 chords. They are just regular major chords applied to a blues progression. The e flat chord is a tricky chord and this free guitar lesson helps you step by step. You can see there are some common notes a, d and e being them. In a, the minor blues scale notes are a, c, d, eb, e, g. Choose a key to write in if you are just starting out the c major, g major, a minor and e minor are good keys to start with work out the primary chords i, iv, v. In a simple song, a chord progression will follow the root note of the melody.
There are 5 basic rules to follow when writing a chord progression. Hello, i have developed a pc mac app called kordskontrol that could be an answer. The bulk of existing chord progressions never really change. Experiment with using this variation in the different forms later in this lesson. The fundamental chord progression is e, e7, a, a7 and b7. If youre playing guitar, the keys with the easiest chords are g major, e minor, c major and a minor. The first blues well have a look at is the original 12bar blues chord progression. Kickstart your songwriting with these ultrauseful chord. A short note on the classic 12bar blues chord progression.
The vchord sound like it want to resolve into another chord. The blues chord progression lasts 12 bars thus the phrase 12bar blues that move in a familiar pattern using those three chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of western popular music styles e. The bird blues progression still modulates to the iv of the key, but it has that. In the key of e blues, the 1 chord is an e, the 4 chord is an a, and the 5 chord is a b. Easy way to learn to play bb blues scale on a piano using our notes and chords charts. Easy stepbystep lessons to learn all the power chords. Figure 3 incorporates sparse, seventhchord shell voicings into our basic minor jazzblues progression, which give it a more modern jazz flavor, albeit with the traditional flatfour strum pattern still maintained for purposes of illustration and comparison. Best chords for a love song photo by clem onojeghuo on unsplash if youre feeling loved up and want to pen a masterpiece to woo someone special, youre going to need to write something that properly captures the very essence of love. Example of how to use chord progressions imagine that the song is in a major and, for some reason, you want to change the tonality to e major in the chorus.
Try jamming on and soloing over both sets of chords and the walking bass line. Learn to play on e chords with some chords, tabs, video lesson and tutorials for keyboard chords. Would you like it to be functioning software, and not just a bunch of flat. In the key of c, for instance, the 145 progression would be c major chord, f major chord, and g major chord, so you would use those notes to solo. You could see this is mixing major and minor key blues. There are many different 12 bar blues forms though. So with the corresponding letters substituted for the roman numerals, the progression looks like the following figure. How to play minor blues guitar chord progressions youtube.
In western music theory terms, the blues scale is practically inexplicable. Playing the 12 bar blues chord progression in the key of c 4. A notable example of a descending minor chord progression is the fourchord andalusian cadence, iviiviv. Or, in the same way, the g blues scale with the chords g7, c7 and d7. Rating is available when the video has been rented. The 5 chord stays the same as it would in its major key.
Nov 05, 2015 hello, i have developed a pc mac app called kordskontrol that could be an answer. The automatic way of doing this would be by start playing e major harmonic field in the chorus, what would be shocking to. In this section, you will learn six different variations of the blues progression. You could technically think of, say, bflat as being the sharp sixth rather than the flat. Many guitarists just use open chords or barre chords in their blues progressions. In this case the major 3rd and flat 7th reveal the dominant 7th sound. The eflat in the c blues scale makes it sound minor, but the scale is customarily played on top of major chords. Essentially, the blues is a specific progression that uses the c7, f7, and g7 chords. Each part of the blues verse starts with a different chord, and that helps you know where you are in the verse. You can, for example, combine c blues scale with c7, f7 and g7 chords. So now anytime youre in front of a lead guitar player you are cool, confident and prepared because youve mastered these 3 juicy blues chord progressions. Recommended chords for an e flat major blues scale. Learn to play on echords with some chords, tabs, video lesson and tutorials for keyboard chords.
How to write chord progressions songwriting basics. Now that the harmony of blues music is covered, lets end this study by exploring the blues chord progression. A typical progression would be whats called a 145 progressionit would be the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale. Instead of playing the c blues scale over 12 bar blues changes, you could play a pentatonic minor over c, d pentatonic minor over f, and e pentatonic minor over g this is equivalent to c pentatonic major, f pentatonic major, and g pentatonic major. Essentially, bars 11 and 12 are a iviiiv chord progression. Mar 03, 2017 in bar 8, the iii chord is added with the vi. Or you could try any number of other scales that fit with your chords. Blues music has a standard 12bar form usually with 4 beats to a bar.