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Quick Change Blues in A

Lesson ID: TB050

One very common struggle for acoustic blues players is learning how to switch effortlessly from the groove to a lick and back.

The way to overcome this obstacle is to improve your overall timing.  Great timing can be the difference between a good guitar player and a great guitar player.

This quick change blues in A is set to a laid back pace and presents a great opportunity for you to take your time and really focus on locking in with a slow blues groove.  To say it another way, it’s easier to work on your timing with a slower tempo tune.  I constantly recommend learning blues at slow tempos before tackling the fast stuff.  One of the great things about blues is that a slow blues tune is completely within reach of a beginner and it sounds awesome…slow!

Quick Change Blues

I’ve covered quick change blues in a BGI lesson that predates the Tuesday Blues show, which you can read about here:

Quick Change Blues: A Simple Tweak that Adds Variety

As the name of that lesson implies, I really love the variety and subtle lift that Quick Change Blues has over its parent 12 bar blues progression.

There are so many ways that you can dress up a basic 12 bar progression and I’ve taken a few liberties in this lesson to explore some dynamics that make this little 12 bar piece breathe a little.

This piece has:

  • melody embedded in the rhythm itself;
  • an early break from the shuffle rhythm in bar 3 and 4 and even
  • a lick in bar 9 when we hit the V chord

This week, work to really nail the timing. Take advantage of this slow blues tune and really lay into the beat.  Fire up a metronome and get into it.  The more time you dedicate to a piece like this one will pay big dividends when you later tackle a faster tempo.

Best of luck and Play On!

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