Picture this, you’re playing a 12-bar blues breaking it down with a killer impromptu solo on your acoustic guitar. You finish and go play the rhythm while someone else does a solo. What do you do to keep things interesting and inspire anyone who’s playing just over your groove?
Hopefully, it has something more to offer than just the same chord shapes and strum patterns. If not, this is something you need to fix as it is a huge imbalance in your playing which is never good. In fact, it’s very common to hear musicians excel in the soloing department and really struggle on the rhythm side. Generally speaking though, rhythm guitar is what we do most of our time when playing music.
The blues is a great vehicle to start developing your rhythm guitar skills as it is the universal language among musicians. Anyone can play a 12-bar blues, and it’s often the thing to do when first meeting someone to play. There have been many times in my own life where I have literally just met someone and within minutes we are playing a blues together, sometimes in real concert situations. It’s so much fun to do!
However, as stated above, it takes more than just soloing and improvisation skills to pull it off. The rhythm side is just as important and today I’m going to show you 3 awesome ways you can approach a 12 bar blues when playing the rhythm. You’ll be able to take these ideas to your next jam and blow everyone away, because not only will you sound better, but everyone else who jams with you will too.
The 12 Bar Blues Progression
A 12-bar blues is something most guitarists learn very early on. Today we will work on the key of G. Here is the progression:
|G7 | | | |C7 | |G7 | |D7 |C7 |G7 |D7 ||
Now, there’s nothing wrong with reading this chart by playing open or downbeat chords. The problem is if this is all you can do. As you can imagine, that would get pretty boring, pretty quickly, not only for you who’s playing the chords, but also for the person who’s soloing on them.
Unfortunately, many guitarists can only do this (i.e. play basic chord shapes) when they are put in the spot to play a 12-bar blues, whether in a jam or at a gig. It’s a shame because there’s so much more you can do with a 12-bar blues when it comes to the rhythm guitar part.
The other thing to consider when developing your rhythm guitar skills is the benefits it has for those you also play with. I know I’ve always improvised to the best of my ability when playing with a great rhythm guitarist. It gives me so much more to feed on, and you can bet I’ll be looking for that player again to play, or maybe start a band.
So if you want to be the player everyone wants to play with, develop your rhythm guitar playing!
Let’s get into it…
1. Add a touch of jazz to the blues
Jazz and blues are closely related, and the styles actually intersect with what is commonly known as a jazz blues progression. This is also 12 bars long and generally uses more chords than your standard 12 bar blues. I love taking this approach when playing the rhythm part of a blues. It really brings out some cool sounds when you solo over it.
Here’s a 12-bar jazz blues progression in our key of G:
|G7 |C7 |G7 |Dm7 G7 |C7 |C#dim |G7 |E7 | Am7 |D7 |G7 E7|Am7 |D7 ||
As you can see and hear, there are more chords in our example above, however we are playing the same 12-bar form. In the world of jazz it is very common to substitute chords in a progression. While it’s beyond this article to go into detail about it, the above progression is a great way to introduce a few more chords you can use on your rhythm guitar. This is true not only for the blues, but for other areas of your playing as well.
With that being said, learn the example above and start putting some of these chords in your ears and fingers so they become part of your rhythm guitar arsenal that you can use when you jam or jam.
2. Rhythmic riffs to play blues
An alternative approach to strumming chords all the time is to use riffs in your rhythmic blues playing. These are known as pretty fun rhythm riffs and are great to create on the side that will work well online with someone improvising over them. When you have some rhythmic riffs in your playing, it would be a good idea to create variations of them.
3. Using chord blocks in your blues progression
Block chords are another great way to approach playing the rhythm part of a blues progression. I remember when I first met these guys many years ago and literally applied them to everything I could. I loved the possibilities I could do with them and they were the first chord type I really understood after learning open and slash chords.
These chords are sometimes called 4, 3, 2, 1 voices in relation to the strings they fall on.
what to do next
Your first step is to get each example above. This may take a bit of time, which is fine, but don’t rush it. However, once you’ve done that, there are more things you can and should do.
I deliberately kept the examples in this article in the same key. This was so you could connect them more easily. Once you have these rhythm approaches, you’ll want to apply and connect them to each other. This is vitally important if you want anything in this article to be a part of your guitar playing.
I cannot stress this point enough.
Apply the things you learn, over and over again, in many different musical contexts. Also mix the things you learn together as well. By doing this, you will inadvertently come up with your own variations, which is the whole point. Your goal is to be able to play and improvise through an emerging blues with different rhythmic parts as you go from chorus to chorus.