How to Create “Walking” 12-Bar Blues Rhythms

Video Cliffs:

0:00 – Intro

0:49 – Basic Overview of the Intervals Used

6:17 – Example #1 – Basic Blues Shuffle

8:32 – Example #2 – Beatles – Birthday Song

10:13 – Example #3 – Led Zeppelin – Rock n Roll

14:35 – Example #4 – Cream – Crossroads

17:14 – Example #5 – Debbie Davies – Don’t Take Advantage of Me

22:37 – Final Words

Relevant Lessons:

Most “Blues Theory” Comes From Dominant 7th Chords

In this lesson, we are taking a look at how to create “walking rhythms” for a 12-bar blues progression. When it comes to blues theory, a good place to start is always with dominant 7th chords.

Let’s say we want to play the “blues in A”:

I chord – A7

– A7 IV chord – D7

– D7 V chord – E7

These will be the 3 chords that we focus on for a 12-bar blues walking rhythm.

First, take a look at the chord formula for a dominant 7th chord:

Dominant 7th Chord Formula: R – 3 – 5 – b7

If you wanted to create a “walking” type of rhythm for each chord – the I, IV and V chord – a good place to start would be with the R, 3, 5 and b7 intervals.

Let’s look at this on the fretboard…

A7 intervals:

D7 intervals:

E7 intervals:

Go ahead, try and create some rhythms using these intervals for each chord. Think of a bass player playing a walking bass line, only you’re doing it on the guitar.

Next, let’s add in some more notes…

In the blues you will find the minor 3rd and major 3rd interval used together a lot. You will also find the major 6th and b7 interval used together a lot as well. These interval combinations are only a half-step apart from each other as you can see from this fretboard diagram:

A7 intervals:

Notice how the major 6th is a half-step lower than the b7 interval. Also notice how the minor 3rd interval is only a half-step lower then the major 3rd interval.

You can apply the same “1/2 step theory” to the D7 and E7 too…

D7 intervals:

E7 intervals:

Those are the main intervals that you need to focus on when creating “walking rhythms” for each chord. Check out the different examples in the video above.

These Intervals can be Found Everywhere!

Note that these intervals are found all over the entire fretboard. In the 3rd example – Rock n Roll by Led Zeppelin – these intervals are found in the open position of the fretboard.

A7 intervals:

D7 intervals:

E7 intervals:

In example #5, the intervals for the E7 chord can be found like so…

E7 intervals:

As you can see, these intervals are found all over the place.

These intervals are what make up the blues, so from now on when you are learning your favorite SRV or Hendrix licks, pay attention to which notes are being used. You will find that – R, m3, 3, 5, 6, b7 – are the most common notes used for each chord!

Have fun!