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4TH QUARTER: VISUAL KEYS PART 2 (BLUES)

August 13, 2021 By Jim Beckwith

 

My last post explained the concept of “key shapes”, an easier way

to find out the chords in any key by following the shape and

sequence the chords formed on the fretboard. That post referred

to major keys, this post is about blues keys. Blues harmony is the

foundation of most popular modern music; rock, jazz, modern 

country, R&B, etc. so even if you don’t like blues music you still

need to understand the harmony! As with the previous post on

major key shapes, the theory behind blues harmony is advanced.

My book, “Take Control: for guitar”, explains this in more detail,

but the short explanation is that a blues key equals a major plus

a minor key added together. These 2 keys are both built off the

same root, i.e.. E blues=E major+E minor. This major/minor

combo gives blues harmony both a distinct sound and a distinct

shape. Blues keys jump 3 frets from the root, then 2 frets, while

major keys jump in 2 fret + 2 fret intervals as I showed in the

last post. In addition the scale is different than the pentatonic

scale, since a blues scale contains notes from both major and

minor scales, it’s got a lot of notes! (Here is pos. 1/type 1 root)

Use the same root as the pentatonic minor, the first finger,

5th fret is A blues. Below I am showing the same key shapes

diagram as the last post. This time we want to look at Blues

key shape on the lower right hand side. We will use this 

shape to find the chords in the key of A blues; A,C,D,E,F,G.

 

If we start this pattern on the 5th fret, our type 1 root is

A (looking at the 6th string table on the left side of the

diagram). The root chord for this pattern will always

be a type 1 chord. The next chord goes up 3 frets to C 

major (bIII),  Then we switch to type 2 chords and get

the D (IV), E (V), F (bVI), and G (bVII). Notice that 

the V chord is the only chord that’s not 3 frets higher.

This illustrates an important point; the I, IV, and V

chords are the same for both major and blues keys.*

check the major key shape on top right if you need to.

This means if your song only contains a I,IV,V chord

progression you could be in either major or blues! 

This means both a major and a blues scale will work,

which one you use will depend on the style of the

song; both Johnny B Goode and Oh My Darling

Clementine use A, D, and E chords when played in

the key of A, but I would use a blues scale for J. B.

Goode and a major scale for Clementine. You don’t

have to play only the types of chords in the shape

above, either. You only use the shape to find out the

chords to play, once you know what chords to play

you can play any version of those chords you know.

(* If you look closely at the blues key diagram above

you will notice that the I,IV, and V chords are both

major and minor. That’s not a mistake! Blues

harmony is both major and minor and it’s quite

possible to have both a D major chord and a D minor

chord in the same song, in fact it’s one of the things

that tells me I’m in a blues key.)

The next post will sum up what we’ve learned over 

the past 4 ” quarters”.

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