The main chord progressions in blues explained A blues chord progression is series of chords with a specific tonality, or sound, relative to the tonic chord. When all of the chords in a progression belong to the same major or minor key, the progression is considered to be diatonic in nature. If one or more […]

How to construct chords in blues and use them to your own advantage Now that we’ve gone over some of the scales that we’ll be using in our solos, let’s spend some time on the other half of the equation—chords. Before we start discussing some of the progressions that we’ll be soloing over, let’s talk […]

Riff 1. E7–A7–E7 HARMONIC ANALYSIS This boogie pattern represents a set of changes that regularly occur over the first four bars of a 12-bar blues: I–IV–I. What makes the blues so unique is how it blends both major and minor sounds. An example of this is the prevalence of dominant seventh chords in the blues. <.div> […]

While lead playing is the main focus of this blog, we need to discuss a bit of theory in order to better understand the progressions and scales presented on the following pages. As you may have learned from a guitar teacher or another instructional blog, the major scale is the foundation of Western music, whether […]

Riff 1: A–D–A HARMONIC ANALYSIS This progression is as about as simple as they come. It begins and ends with an A triad and the A string is pedaled throughout; therefore, you can feel pretty confident that the progression is rooted in the key of A. (Note: In addition to analyzing the chord progression, the […]

The minor scale definition Like the major scale, the minor scale is comprised of seven notes. In fact, the minor scale (a.k.a. the natural minor scale or Aeolian mode) is the relative minor of the major scale, meaning both scales contain the same notes. For example, the relative minor of C major (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) is A […]