Clapton-style Acoustic Blues - Page 7

by Jim Burger This 12-bar progression generally features a lyric line in bars 1-2, 5-6 and 9-10, so you will see the most interesting moves inserted in bars 3-4, 7-8 and 11-12 (i.e. when there's no singing going on). Nonetheless, the fourth beat of bars 1,2,4,5 and 6 each feature a neat little insert that can spice up your shuffle. You should learn some of these for fun and add them to your blues repertoire but these are simply icing on the cake.

Bars 3-4 simply utilize the G# hammer-on move discussed above. Sounds good, doesn't it? Let's not forget that good bluesmen know when to keep things simple -- we don't need to show off how fast we are and how many scales we know at every opportunity. That's why we play blues, not jazz or rock!

Bars 7-8 use a nice run up and down the blues scale (adding the 2nd fret of the 2nd string from your A chord) which once again resolves using our G# hammer-on. It then leads into measure 9 by walking up the 6th and 5th strings leading into your B note (the V of your I-IV-V progression).

Bars 11-12 use our E7 triplets as discussed previously, followed by a slide down the third string into another G# hammer-on, finally resolving into a B7 chord turnaround. The turnaround in measure 12 sounds tough but it's mostly played out of a B7 fingering, so it's no strain on your fretting hand.

I know this is quite a mouthful to digest at once, but that's it... Any questions before we move on to take a look at a Clapton solo? Good, then let's turn the page!