Guitar Tricks Online Guitar Lessons

Lesson 6: Turnaround

 
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Albert King, like our other kings of the blues, had a unique way to approach the turnaround in a 12 bar blues. His approach was to play his minor pentatonic blues licks from the I chord up a whole step. This outlines the notes of a V9 chord, which gives his licks a very unique and fresh sound. Let's take a look at how we can approach this idea and make it our own.

Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Tutorial:
The Albert King Style
Styles:
Difficulty:
print notation download lesson open guitar tuner
Lesson 6: Turnaround song notation
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Lesson 6: Turnaround By Anders Mouridsen

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Questions & Answers

1 year ago
In the introduction to this lesson, you say that King instead of playing C minor licks over the V chord plays D minor licks. And if you know about theory, you’ll know that doing this outlines the G9 chord. Is there some place on the Guitar Tricks website or elsewhere where I could read about the theory. Thank you, Stan
Mike Olekshy 1 year ago

Thanks so much for your question! What Anders is getting at, is that you can use any D minor triad as convenient visual shorthand way of playing over the upper extensions of the G9 chord. You can see the top 3 strings of that G9 chord rooted on the A string are exactly the 3 notes that form a D minor chord rooted on the E string (the top part of the E-shaped barre chord for Dm). This is why you could use D minor licks over that G9 chord. This tutorial covers the theory of dominant 9th chords. https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/1185/ This tutorial covers harmonizing the major scale to build triads for beginners. https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/2387/ Hope this helps!

1 year ago
I'm so confused about when to start playing turn-around lick. I'm not getting at which bar and also how to keep track of bars w.o trying or thinking like naturally I mean.
Mike Olekshy 1 year ago

Hello - and thanks so much for your question! The turnaround starts in Bar 9 of the 12 bar blues form - which is when the progression goes to the V chord for the first time. The turnround continues through to the last bar (12th bar) of the progression. You might have to count the bars at first to know where you are at in the form, but eventually, after you've played through 12 bar blues alot, you'll feel it naturally and won't have to count. But this comes with lots of practice - keep at it!