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The 8-bar blues
The 8-bar blues is four bars shorter than the 12-bar blues, but the 8-bar blues
doesn’t really follow a strict form the way the 12-bar blues does. The 8-bar
blues encompasses several feels, tempos, and qualities — often an 8-bar
blues has more chords in it than just the basic I, IV, and V, making it more
“songlike” than a 12-bar blues. Figure 6-6 is an 8-bar blues played with a bassstrum
pattern by using a variety of chords.
Shuffle (qr=qce)
C
C7
F
Fm
T
A
B
3
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0
2 2 2 2
3
3
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
3 3 3 3
2 2 2 2
3
1
1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3
3
1
1 1 1 1
3 3 3 3
3
C
A7
D7
G7
C C 7 F Fm
C G 7 (barre)
Figure 6-6:
An 8-bar
blues that
uses various
chords.
0 0 0 0
1 1 2 2
0 0 0 0
2 2 2 2
3 0
106 Part II: Setting Up to Play the Blues TEAM LinG
2 2 1 1
1 1 2 2 0 0 0
3
0 0 1 1 1 0 3 2 1
2 2 3 3 3 3
1 1
0 0 1 1 5
0 0 4
2 2 3
3 5 3
Straight-four (or rock blues)
Straight-four is sometimes called rock blues or rock feel and means that you
play even eighth notes supported by a heavy backbeat (emphasis on beats
two and four, usually courtesy of a cracking snare drum). Most blues is in a
non-straight feel, meaning it’s either in a shuffle (a long-short scheme that
derives from triplets) or a slow 12/8 feel (with three notes to the beat). So a
straight-four, which is common in rock, is actually rare in traditional blues.