Easy Blues Chord Progressions

Learning to play the blues is a rewarding but challenging task for many guitarists. The first thing I think we all learn is how to play the 12-bar blues chord progression. All though the concept of playing a 12-bar blues is easy to understand getting it to sound like B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and other blues guitar greats is actually pretty difficult. The intent of this lesson is to show you some easy blues chord progressions.

The 12-bar blues form commonly consists of just three chords. The I, IV and V chord of the key you are playing in. For example if we were playing in the key of E then the I chord would be E, the IV chord would be A and the V chord would be B. So the only chords we need for playing blues guitar in the key of E is E, A and B.


In it's simplest form the 12-bar blues would look something like this. Will use the chords in the key of E as an example.



| E / / / | E / / / | E / / / | E / / / |


| A / / / | A / / / | E / / / | E / / / |


| B / / / | B / / / | E / / / | E / / / |


E = I chord
A = IV chord
B = V chord

To spice things up we can add what's called a turnaround to the above progression.

The same progression above with a turnaround will look like this



| E / / / | E / / / | E / / / | E / / / |


| A / / / | A / / / | E / / / | E / / / |


| B / / / | A / / / | E / A / | E / B / |

There you have it! Some simple 12-bar blues chord progressions to get you started. I suggest playing them until you have them memorized and then start experimenting with moving the chords around a bit. Their are no real rules as to which chords should be played when so if it sounds good go with it and most importantly have fun. That is what playing blues guitar is all about.

Learn how to play blues guitar like the greats!