Blues shuffle in E

Jam track · 12-bar blues · Shuffle · E blues scale

Now

E7

Next

E7
  1. E7
  2. E7
  3. E7
  4. E7
  5. A7
  6. A7
  7. E7
  8. E7
  9. B7
  10. A7
  11. E7
  12. B7

E blues scale · box 1

Orange dots are E, the home note.

151712EGAA♯BDEGAA♯BDEG

The blue note is the extra note between A and B. Slide through it, don't sit on it.

112BPMJam tempo

Blues shuffle in E backing track

A 12-bar blues in E at 112 BPM, with a shuffle groove on drums, bass and rhythm guitar. The loop is 12 bars long and uses 3 chords: E7, A7, B7. Solo over it with the E blues scale box shown on the fretboard.

The chords

  1. E7
  2. E7
  3. E7
  4. E7
  5. A7
  6. A7
  7. E7
  8. E7
  9. B7
  10. A7
  11. E7
  12. B7

What to play

The blue note is the extra note between A and B. Slide through it, don't sit on it.

The orange dots are E, the home note. While the band plays, the notes of the chord playing now light up. Ending a phrase on one of them sounds settled.

Learn the box firstScale drill

How to practise with it

  1. Play the box up and down once with the band, one note per beat, to hear how it fits.
  2. Make up a two-bar phrase and repeat it. Change one note each time round.
  3. Leave gaps. A phrase, then a bar of rest, sounds more like music than notes all the way through.
  4. Turn the guitar off and play the chords yourself, or slow the tempo down to learn the changes.

Drums: Sonic Pi sample library from freesound.org, CC0. Bass and guitar: MusyngKite soundfont by Benjamin Gleitzman, CC BY-SA 3.0.