![]() You will probably feel a sense of familiarity when you play/hear the chord progression as you would have heard it in various formats many times before. You should practise playing this chord progression in different keys, just to get used to the process and become familiar with the chord progression. Simple right? You can do this with any key. The 12 bar blues in the key of B flat would look like this: The key of Bb has the following chords for I, IV and V: Playing the 12 Bar Blues in a particular key is simply a matter of figuring out the I, IV and V of that key and then using those chords with the above form. Although there are many variations, the basic 12 bar blues follows a particular pattern of the three chords. The 12 bar blues is made up of 12 bars (crazy, huh?) and yep… you guessed it. You will probably be reminded of specific songs as you play the chords, because they are so common. You should experiment with playing I, IV and V in any key and observe how well they fit together. These three chords work together so well, that it’s very easy to write songs using just the I, IV and V. Some only use two (such as the I and IV, or I and V). There are many many songs that only use these three chords. The Importance Of I, IV And VĪs I mentioned earlier, the I, IV and V are the ‘strongest’ three chords in a key. Rather than getting overly technical when describing the function of chords, the best approach is to try to experience them yourself and try to articulate what effect they have. They sound more like an opinion than a technical analysis. The above ‘descriptions’ of the I, IV and V chords are deliberately vague. The point is this – the sound of a chord is really dependent on context. If we were to play a G major chord in the middle of a song that is in the key of B, it would sound weird, because G major does not belong in the key of B. It has a different feeling when played in the key of C than it does when played in the key of D (it becomes the IV chord). This is another example of thinking of chords with relationships in mind – a G Major chord in the key of C is the V chord. It’s a tension that wants to be resolved back to the I chord. While it usually sounds good, bright and interesting, it does create tension. This is a good example of how chords have relationships. Although it is ‘safe’ and ‘comfortable’, it creates a little bit of tension, because it is a move away from the ‘I’ chord. The ‘IV’ Chord is another safe chord that always seems to work well. When we reach this chord after playing another chord, it feels like we have arrived back home. It will always feel comfortable and safe. If we are playing a song in the key of G major, the G major chord is the I chord. The ‘I’ Chord is like the ‘home’ chord in any key. Although it is difficult to articulate the function of each chord, it helps to give a general idea. These functions are probably more abstract than they are concrete, but just being aware that they exist can help you to understand chords better. I have mentioned the labels because it’s good to be thorough, but also, it’s an insight into the fact that each chord has a relationship to the other chords, or a function. ![]() It’s probably easier to just refer to them as I, IV and V. In fact, the labels aren’t even that important for now. The other chords have labels too, but we’re not concerned with them at the moment. I is the Tonic, IV is the Subdominant and V is the Dominant. The I, IV and V chords represent the Major chords in a given key (which is why the numerals are written in uppercase).Įach of these chords has a name that tells us about how the chord functions. Just to recap, the seven chords in a key are as follows: If you read the previous lesson, this will all make sense. We also learnt that chords are often written by using roman numerals. In the previous lesson on song writing and chord theory, we learnt that each key is made up of seven chords, one for every note of the major scale. To be able to play a blues, we need three chords – 1, 4 and 5. Before we look at exactly what it is, we need to be familiar with I, IV and V chords. So what is it? Well, it has 12 bars, but I’m guessing that you already figured that out by the title. For guitarists, it is an essential part of our repertoire. It has been used to produce countless hits including outside of the blues genre. The 12 bar blues is one of the most popular chord progressions in all of music. We will also explore the minor blues scale and look at how it’s a perfect fit for the 12-bar blues chord progression. In this lesson, we are going to look at the 12-bar blues, which is a popular chord progression used in countless songs.
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