12 Bar Blues

I find blues to be and extremely enjoyable style of music to play. This is true both for advanced players and beginners as you really don't need to have a lot of background knowledge or experience in the matter. Blues can actually be the perfect style for a player to start at, due to how simple it can be made. The majority of blues tunes are so called ''Twelve Bar Blues''. This refers to the I ,IV, V chord sequence. For example if the song was in the key of A the chords used would be A, D and E.

This is your typical 12 bar blues pattern in the key of A.

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---------------------0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-------------------------2-2-2-2-0-0-0-0-------------
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0----------------------0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0---------------------0-0-0-0----
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 If your main aim is soloing, there is one essential thing you must do. Learn the pentatonic scale. This will provide you with a solid base that will keep you going in the world of blues. There are however slight alterations to the standard pentatonic scale which will make your solos have that tasty sound. Blues notes!

Another trick you can use to make your solos sound even better is combining the major and minor pentatonic scales. For example if you're playing in the key of A, you can play the a minor pentatonic blues scale and then shift to the first position of the C major pentatonic scale. This works very well as A is the relative minor of C major. There really isn't much more too it. All blues guitarists use this or at least base their playing on these few things.