Guitar II: The Blues and some new chord shapes

We are going to experiment with the blues progression and soloing over a blues progression using the pentatonic scale. In this instance we were experimenting with the key of A (a very guitar friendly blues key).

First here is the basic chord structure of the blues:

A7
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |
D7             A7
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |
E7    D7     A7
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

What you will learn (if you keep playing and studying the blues) is that this is a real basic progression of chords within the blues and you can create many, many variations on chord choice and position.

We can use the A minor pentatonic scale for soloing over this progression. We can also use the A Blues Scale. Here are examples of those 2 scales:

A minor Pentatonic:

A Blues Scale:

I wanted to also introduce a couple new chord voicings that can be useful when playing the blues.


Playing the blues becomes a sort of puzzle in which the pieces can fit in a number of places. This can lead to near endless variations on what you can play and how you choose to express yourself.
Here we scratch the surface...