How To Play The Blues | EASY Guitar Lesson for Beginners!

This tutorial covers how to play blues guitar in the key of A – an easy 3 chord song, easy recognizable blues riff, and a classic blues lick… Learn easy blues shuffle rhythm, the 1 4 5 formula, blues licks, a turnaround and more! Learn how to play 12 Bar Blues with this easy blues guitar lesson for Beginners! BB King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and John Mayer await!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0:00 – INTRO
1:46 – What Is a 12 Bar Blues?
3:01 – What We Mean by 1 4 and 5 Chords
3:23 – Blues In The Key of A
6:30 – Easy Blues – Chord Order
7:58 – Strumming Acoustic Blues
8:34 – Classic Blues Rhythm (Boogie Woogie)
13:27 – I IV V Memory Exercise
14:38 – Essential Turnaround Lick
16:27 – Easy Turnaround Lick

The lesson begins by answering a few simple questions: What is the 12 bar blues? What are the I, IV, V chords? And how do we play blues in the key of A?

We learn the three easy chords needed to play it (A7, D7, E7 or A, D, E) discuss the theory behind them, and then we put them in a certain order – fitting them into 12 bars – and that’s how we get our 12 bar blues!

First we strum it with a shuffle feel and then we add a classic blues rhythm – the boogie woogie rhythm, which works on acoustic guitar but is especially exciting on electric! I show you a simple trick for memorizing the 1, 4, 5 theory concept and applying that to the blues.

We finish off by learning an essential turnaround lick. I have I also have a super easy turnaround lick that we can learn too! With everything in this lesson you will be prepared to show up to a jam session and play the blues with confidence!

Free Blues Chord Charts

Here are two free blues chord charts for the most common keys of A and E.

12-Bar Blues In A

A7        D7        A7        A7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

D7        D7        A7        A7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

E7        D7        A7        A7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

12-Bar Blues In E

E7        A7        E7        E7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

A7        A7        E7        E7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

B7        A7        E7        E7        
/ / / /   / / / /   / / / /   / / / /   

Soloing On The Blues

To play a blues guitar solo, all you need is the pentatonic scale. If you want more help with that, this lesson will show you the best way to learn the minor pentatonic scale.

Long story short, you line up your index finger with the KEY of the blues you’re playing. A = 5th fret, as you see in the diagram below.

---

KEY	FRET TO ALIGN WITH
A	5
C	8
G	3
E	0
D	10

FREE “Blues In A” Backing Track

You can practice all of the things discussed on this page, using this free blues in A backing track.

For soloing tips, I recommend checking out my lead guitar lessons.