In this Tutorial Series we are going to learning how to play a 12 Bar Blues in A!

Now we have our basic riff and pattern established let's move it over to the next set of strings: the E and A strings. Notice that we've started on the A and D strings. We then moved UP to the next highest set of strings. Then we moved back to the original set. Now we are moving DOWN to the lower set of strings.

Our simple riff gives us a lot of practice at shifting from one set of strings to higher and lower strings!

So, we have our first pattern on the A string and D string making an A chord - the I (one) chord in our 12 bar blues progression. Then, we take the same idea and pattern but move it over to the next set of strings - the D string and the G string making a D chord - the IV (four) chord in our 12 bar blues progression. Finally we add the third pattern on the E and A strings making an E chord - the V (five) chord in our 12 bar blues progression.

If you can't get from one chord to the next in enough time, then leave off a little bit of the end of one. The idea here is to start playing the next chord ON TIME.

Ultimately, the idea here is that we can use the exact same pattern to play an entire 12 bar blues song or progression - simply by moving the same pattern to different sets of strings.