238658923659

Chapter 6
Blues Progressions, Song Forms,
and Moves
In This Chapter
Distinguishing the primary key families and their chords
Recognizing the structure of a blues song
Playing the 12-bar blues
Blues is a welcoming, beckoning music for both listener and performer
that says, “Join in and start contributing!” The blues’ repetition and calland-response
qualities — derived from its forebears, the work song and field
holler — make it easy for people to join in a song on the fly. Musicians can
grasp the form quickly, and listeners have an expectation that’s set up by
each phrase, which is then satisfied by the lyrics or the chord progression.
Best of all, these simple, infectious, and ingenious devices that make the
blues so relatable are easy to understand and master, and are covered in
this chapter.
Blues by the Numbers
You can learn music a lot quicker if you associate chords and keys by their
numerical equivalents. In any key, the root or tonic (the tone that names the
key or chord) becomes one, and subsequent pitches become two, three, four,
and so on. These numbers are expressed in Roman numerals. So in the key of
C, the numbers are broken down like this:
C is I
D is II
E is III
F is IV, and so on
TEAM LinG