If you have been playing guitar for a little while, I’m sure you've found yourself in the situation where you are required to jam a spontaneous 12 bar blues. With the blues being such a universal language amongst musicians, this is often what happens when you first meet up with someone for a jam, that is you play a 12 bar blues.
Needless to say, as an acoustic guitarist, we need to be able to play the blues. It’s heaps of fun to create music on the spot, spontaneously, and you want to be capable of doing this.
Truth be known, most guitar players can do this at varying levels on the solo side of things, as this tends to be the focus. However, when it comes to the rhythm parts of a blues, most guitar players suck. It’s all too common to hear great soloing in a jam session and very boring, unimaginative and uninspiring rhythm guitar playing.
Even though as a guitarist you are playing rhythm the majority of your time, with the exception being if you play in an instrumental band, it tends to be an afterthought. You kind of do what you need to do (ie. same old chords and strumming patterns) while you wait until your next solo.
Let’s put the focus on the rhythm guitar role in a blues with these 3 cool, imaginative, and inspiring ways you can play through a 12 bar while someone else is soloing. Taking these approaches into your next jam session will raise the playing of not just yourself, but everybody else around you too.
The 12 Bar Blues Progression
A 12 bar blues is something most guitar players learn very early on. Today we will work in the key of G. Here is the progression:
Basic 12 Bar Blues Progression In G
Now, there is nothing wrong with reading your way through this chart playing open or bar chords. The problem is if this is all you can do. As you can imagine, that would get pretty boring, pretty quickly, not just for yourself who is playing the chords, but for the person soloing over them too.
Unfortunately, many guitar players can only do this (ie. play basic chord forms) when put on the spot to play a 12 bar blues, whether it be at a jam or in a gig situation. It’s a shame because there is so much more you can do with a 12 bar blues as far as the rhythm guitar part is concerned.
The other thing to consider when developing your rhythm guitar chops is the benefits it has for those you play with too. I know that I have always improvised my best when I am playing with a great rhythm guitar player. It gives me so much more to feed off, and you can bet I will be seeking that player out again to jam with, or perhaps form a band.
So, if you want to be the player everyone wants to play with, develop your rhythm guitar playing!
Let’s get into it . . . . .
1. Block Chords
Also known as 4, 3, 2, 1 voicing’s, block chords are chord shapes fretted on the top 4 strings of your guitar. They are fantastic for creating cool blues rhythm parts.
Here are the 4 block chord shapes I will be using in this example:
Block Chord 1Block Chord 2Block Chord 3Block Chord 4
And here they are applied to our 12 bar blues:
Block Chord 12 Bar Blues Chorus 1Block Chord 12 Bar Blues Chorus 2
I can clearly remember when I first came across block chords. They immediately resonated with me, and I started to apply them to anything and everything I could. Before block chords I only really know how to play open and bar chords.
In this example I have taken two chorus’ of the blues. In the second chorus you will notice I am changing more frequently between my block chords, even when the chord is not changing in the progression itself. This is a great way to create movement across a static chord, and starts to reveal to you some of the possibilities of using block chords in your rhythm playing.
There are many more things you can do with these guys, but that should keep you occupied for the time being.
2. A Touch Of Jazz
One of my favourite things to do is to add a touch of jazz to a blues progression. Both jazz and blues are closely related styles of music, so it makes sense that you can do this.
The following is a stock standard 12 bar blues progression in the jazz world:
Jazz 12 Bar Blues Example
You will typically find more chords in a jazz blues progression. This is because in jazz, it’s common to substitute some chords of a progression for other chords.
Chord substitution is not something we will go into here as it’s a big subject, however do learn and become familiar with the above example for the following 2 reasons:
It will train your ears to become familiar with some sounds/chords you may not have heard before, or at least, not heard often. Don’t focus on trying to understand these chords, just get them into your ears for now.rnTo build you chord vocabulary as an acoustic guitar player. The chords in the example above can be used in many different playing situations, not just the blues, and will really help improve your rhythm guitar playing in big ways!
The rhythm component to rhythm guitar is very important too, not just the chords you use. The rhythm used in the example above is what’s known as the Charleston pattern. This was inspired by the Charleston dance of the 1920’s and is a very popular rhythm pattern used in jazz.
3. Rhythm Riff Approach
Rhythm riffs are a great alternative to simply strumming chords all the time. They create a nice counterpart to a solo and can be used not just in blues, but other styles of playing too.
Here is an example of a rhythm riff being applied to our blues progression:
Rhythm Riffs 12 Bar Blues Example
This rhythm riff is targeting the 3rd of each chord as it follows the changes of the progression. It relates to the root 6 bar chord form and many variations can be created from it. See if you can come up with some yourself.
Bringing It All Together
You may have noticed that I used the same key for each of the examples above. I did this so it would be easier when integrating and joining the approaches together.
One absolutely crucial thing you MUST do when learning something new, is to apply whatever it is you are learning to as many different situations as you can. In this case we have several approaches to our 12 bar blues, so it’s also important to mix them together too.
When you mix various approaches together you’ll be surprised how many variations you’ll come up with, many times without even intending to. This is good, because your goal is to be able to play endless rhythm guitar variations of a 12 bar blues, not memorise a few and play then exactly the same way every time you want to use them.
rnStand out from the crowd by having the know how when it comes to
acoustic guitar rhythm techniques