How to Rock the 8 Bar Blues Video Lecture | Guitar: Become a Pro (English) - Music

if there's one thing that I've learned
from the online guitar community is that
they're very adamant that you cannot
fake the blues but what happens when
your luxury brand lifestyle does not
allow you to have 12 full bars worth of
Blues that's where the eight-bar blues
comes in so today we're gonna talk about
eight bar blues why you might want to
use it and basically how it works it's a
very structured thing and in case you
don't know what the twelve bar blues
either real quick rundown is it's three
chords the one chord 4 chord and the 5
chord these come from the major scale so
we're gonna do blues in a we're gonna
start at a 5th fret I'm low E string
play the major scale find the first two
three four and the fifth notes okay so
these three notes happen to be a a D and
the e very important if then blues and a
the only three chords you need you can
turn these into chords you turn into
major chords if you want you can be as
simple as just playing the single notes
but we have to play these in a very
structured way depending where you're
going for so the 12 bar blues we have
the way that there's variations of it
but the way that I see it the way I
usually play it is four bars of one so
anything you want to do starting on this
a you four bars worth most the time the
bar is going to be four counts right so
like one and two and three and four and
one the second bar you can make it a
riff third bar
[Music]
and the fourth bar
so this is gonna be the main example
we're gonna use which I'll link you to
the video 12 bar blues it's the exact
same thing I'm hitting it the first note
the root note two times that I'm
skipping to its octave so this would be
72 times and it's flat 7 again when I
say flat 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 to the major
scale as the flat 7 making it a dominant
chord if you're into that kind of stuff
something blues is dominant chords
galore so we've got 5 e 7 D 5 D 7 hang
we can do that exact same shape or any
variation of a shape any kind of riff
you come up with you can use those but
root it start it off start that bar off
on the 1 4 & 5 when it comes to that
alright it's a structure 12 bar blues is
four bars of one two bars of four and
two bars of one as a bar so if I write
the final four bars are one bar of 5 1
by row 4 and then maybe 2 bars of 1 or a
bar of one in the bottom five or a turn
around we're gonna actually use that as
a turnaround okay so one typical example
of the 12 bar blues might be a first bar
of 1 the second part 1 the third bar 1
fourth bar well borrow for a second bar
for two more bars of one I'm to see
doctor said chorus 1 bar 5 1 bar 4 and
then maybe turn around and then back to
the 1 so again that's just a basic 12
bar blues whatever you can vary you can
make variations on that however you want
but again this is 2018 know like we've
got things to do people's attention
spans are shorter we need to shorten
this 8 bars I think is the perfect
amount of blues for maybe a workingman's
blues a business-class blues they kind
of facilitates with the modern day
lifestyle so lucky for us if you know
the twelve bar blues you know the
eight-bar blues to you just take those
middle four bars and take them into
groups of like three bars of four take
the middle for out toss them got new use
for them anymore we're in the eight-bar
blues so those middle four bars were two
bars of four
and two bars of one okay so if we don't
have those anymore we go from four bars
of one straight to the five chord so
I'll go straight into the e all right
one two three four right into the five
four one bar there's a four and then
back to the one before the turnaround
okay now one actual practical way this
is helpful aside from being the business
class blues is maybe you want to work on
your turnarounds or something a lot of
times if maybe you're working on a loop
pedal and I know this is something that
I did when I first started trying blues
guitar stuff is I would loop a
progression at 12 our booze progression
and the thing I wanted to practice most
was the turnaround in context again a
turnaround just being how a lot of times
we'll take those last two bars and just
play some kind of like solo type
something before you start the whole
progression over again but maybe on a
loop pedal you don't want to wait a full
12 bars for it to come back so a cool
thing about the a bar blues is it's more
turn around centric you just have that
one chord that you can jam on for four
bars one two three four now I'm going to
write into 1r and then maybe
some turnaround type thing back into
into whatever you're doing okay so
really the main lesson here isn't just
about the 12 bar blues the a bar blues
it's more of a structure and songwriting
outside of even the blues a lot of it is
born of this structure you see in rock
you see in jazz you see in country see
it everywhere but being able to see how
the structure of songs unfolds is a very
very important thing in my opinion and
the Blues definitely just kind of has it
right because it has a tried and true
formula it always works it always sounds
like the Blues especially when you use
those dominant seven chords as the one
for on the five which again there's no
there's no key that has a dominant seven
chord on the one four and five all the
time usually it's just the five chord
actually but the sound of the Blues is
that minus seven intervals kind of
scraping over a major chord all right
so work on maybe just looping an eight
bar pattern again you can make it as
simple as you want it could just be a
one two three four second bar third bar
[Music]
go to the five and start over right
that's just a single note just to kind
of get the structure of it because when
I was a beginner I remember another
thing that I had a hard time with was
remembering where I am within the
structure of a song if maybe I'm not
playing with another musician from not
playing with a singer just kind of like
internalizing a structure of songs is
something you kind of have to practice
and I really think that twelve bar blues
a bar with sixteen bar blues stuff like
that is a really great way of kind of in
graining that behind-the-scenes
structure of how a song moves and then
you kind of just have a feel for when a
change is coming because this stuff is
tried-and-true it's been around forever
it's gonna be around forever so
definitely work that eight-bar blues
into your arsenal and you'll have all
that extra time left just to live life
and hopefully experience hardship and
trouble and eventually maybe be able to
fill a full
bar blues up with your own soul-crushing
blues so if you have any questions or
comments at them in the comment section
is you're gonna put her at the website
I'll talk to y'all see you thanks a lot