Now it is time to look at a shuffle rhythm because it sounds cool when you are playing blues.

Video Lesson

 

Swinging the rhythm

First of all lets look at a bar of 4:4 with each beat divided into 3 (triplets). We count this with the number of the beat and then trip then let.

We then get rid of the middle note from each triplet and we end up with a shuffle!

You can see that we still strum down on the beat, and we use an up strum for the let. So it is similar to the usual down up pattern but the up strum is kinda delayed slightly.

This "shuffle" type of strumming has many variations and it not quite as "tight" as I am showing you here. If you think of the first strum being right on the beat (which it should be) then the second strum (the up) can be anywhere in between depending on the groove you are playing.

For now you should work on getting the shuffle just as I have shown it in the video and the above examples, but be aware that in the future you might play with this idea a bit.

Try to put this into practice, maybe playing a simple 12 Bar Blues using 7th chords and this shuffle strumming. You have 6 dominant 7th chords, which means that you can play a 12 Bar progression in 3 different keys! (A, G and E) so you might like to try playing some of the blues songs in the next lesson - or look up some of your own - there are literally hundreds of songs that use the 12 Bar Blues progression!

Common Chord Sequences

I know in the vid I talk about the "common chord sequences" but I have changed that for the "Easy Songs" but I hadn't thought of doing that until after we filmed the vid! So the chord sequences that I talk about here are the 12 Bar Blues chord progressions. What is shown below are the chords for Blueses (is that a word?) in A, G and E, which you can play with the 7th chords that you know already! Play each chord for one bar for each time it is shown and try using that shuffle rhythm!

Blues in A: A A A A D D A A E D A E

Blues in G: G G G G C C C C D C G D

Blues in E: E E E E A A E E B A E B

There are many hundreds of blues songs that you can play if you can play these sequences, Before You Accuse Me, Johnnny B Goode, Carol... actually it's probably thousands. Many will have slight variations on the basic pattern shown above, but they usually work with the straight sequence shown above!

Have some fun with them and then have a go at some of these tunes...

Lets look at some in BC-157 • Easy Songs For Stage 5

 

HELP!!!!

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