One Type of Blues Progression (With Some Dissonance.)

There are many variations of "Blues" chord progressions for the guitar. The progression shown in the graphic has one common characteristic in that it has segments that are using counts of eight and then a turnaround section of 4 count segments. The last four count segment is often played a bit harder to let others that may be playing along know that you are about to go back to the beginning of the progression.

The E chord is played and modified to get the dissonance and the changes must be played smoothly and quickly. In the graphic the various positions of the modified E chord are shown in different colors. The E chord is normally played with the index finger of the left hand on the first fret of the third string, the second finger of the left hand on the second fret of the fifth string and the third finger on the second fret of the fourth string. This chord gets a quick down and up strum and is moved into the second position. You will have to adjust your fingering as you move to these new positions. You don't need to try to block or muffle strings as you move to the second position, it is supposed to sound dissonaant. You then strum a quick down and up stroke and move to the third position. Now another quick down and up stroke and you move back to the second position and complete another quick down and up stroke.

If this progression is played too slow it may not sound that great. The speed and smoothness brings resolution of the dissonant tones and if you think about it if you are feeling the blues, you are kind of "dissonant" in your feelings and you are trying to resolve your conflict. This may be why the playing and singing of the blues seems to be therapy for the soul.

When you get to the A chord you can use the A chord or the A7th chord. The B7 chord has the 5th string muffled by the index finger which is holding the 6th string. The B7 chord is sometimes moved upward one fret and then quickly moved back to the original position by some musicians. This type of blues progression allows other musicians to join in and improvise, because they know how you will be moving through the progression. One problem is sometimes that musicians may play this progression for a long time while everyone is getting their turn to improvise.

A typical time for a new musician to start improvising is right after the "turnaround". The other great thing about such progressions is that you can often make up words to this progression while playing. I have played this in a variety of situations where I would make up words on the fly. At school I would sing things like: "I've got the high school lunch room blues....I've got the high school lunch room blues. etc." Part of this is also because blues words often repeat phrases in a similar way to the progression and it gives you lot's of time to think about new versus.

If it turns out that you don't like this pattern - well that makes me blue, but if you like it and write some interesting versus you might consider being a blues musician.