How to Play 12 Bar Blues Chord Pattern for Bass

I wanted to just quickly run down the 12 bar blues chord pattern (not any particular bass lines, just how the chord structure is set up). Bear in mind this is just one way to explain it, particularly the turnaround. In my experience, this is the most accurate way I can explain it. There are lots of variations and alternate ways to play a blues, but this is the most common 12 bar form.

Personally, I interpret the last two measures of the tunaround as having two chords per bar. This may be my personal interpretation, but in my experience is the best way to cover the turnaround for a variety of situations, tempos, and rhythic feels. It’s like my generic or template version, and I alter it to accomadate whatever the jam/tune is.

The original Blues greats from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to John Lee Hooker manipulated and altered the regular 12 bar form in all sorts of ways to create fantastic Blues classics. Each of the songs are unique and may be recognizable just by how the chords go.

A lot of early Rock n Roll songs from the ’50s are basically blues forms, and unfortunately, many of the tunes were lifted directly (lyrics and all) from black blues artists and marketed as “Rock n Roll” to the white teenage audience. There was no such thing as royalties or any type of protection/compensation for the original songwriters, many of whom probably didn’t know about copyright laws. It was a total atrocity and a sad fact of American history. Ok, total tangent.

Many classic rock songs are also blues based. A lot of those guys like The Stones and Eric Clapton very much gave credit where credit was due and were genuine class acts.

It’s always good to learn particular songs, as they each have unique inividual features like stops and kicks or alternate chord structure/turnarounds. Not to mention unique “B” sections, bridges, and choruses.

So, like I was saying, this is my basic explanation of how the chords go in a 12 bar blues that works best for me based on many. many years of experience

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