Chords for Blues Intro Lick - How To Play Classic Blues Intro Lick In Any Key

In this video I'm going to show you exactly how to play a blues guitar intro lick, so stay tuned.
_ [Gm] _ _ [E] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[Gb] Hey [F] _ [G] _ [Eb] _ [Bm] _ _ [G] _
there, this is James for James [C] Shipway Guitar and welcome to this video lesson.
[G] Now today I'm going to show you how to play a classic blues introduction [C] which you can use
to really kickstart any blues tune.
Let's have a listen to it really slowly [G] before I break it up
for you. _
_ [Gb] _ _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _ [Eb] _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ [N] Now if you've listened to any blues music you probably would have heard something
like this before.
There's a lot of different variations on this but this is one of the most
common types so I thought this was a good one to stick with.
Now I'm going to show it to you in
the key of G meaning we would use this as an introduction for a 12 bar blues in the key of G.
Later on I'm going to show you how to put it in some other keys as well but let's break down
this example first of all.
I'm going to start up at the 7th fret on the G string [D] with _ [Ab] my second
finger and I'm going to play the top E string at the 7th fret as [Em] well and I'm going to [D] pick the G
_ _ string then I'm going to pick the top E [Em] string then I'm going to pick the [D] G string again in a
sort of triplet rhythm [G] so I get this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Now I'm using a plectrum to pick this or pick but you could use
pick and fingers like this.
_ There I'm plucking the top note with my ring finger on my right hand
_ [N] or you could use thumb and fingers or whatever sort of approach you prefer but just to keep it
simple now I'm just going to play with a pick okay but experiment and see what works best for you.
So we've got [G] this _ _ _ now it's pretty simple all we do [F] is move it [Db] down a fret
[Gb] _ _ we'll do exactly the same thing [G] so we've got this _ _ [Gb] _ _
then we're going to move it down one more fret
again to the [F] fifth fret and play it again _ _ _ _ [Db] so we get this so far.
[G] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ Okay to finish off this section
of the introduction we're going to play a little fragment of a G chord and here's what we're going
to do we're going to use our first finger we're going to press down the top two strings at third
fret and we're going to play the G string at the fourth fret I'm going to use my second [G] finger for
that so I've got this little G major chord here _ _ _ and we're just going to strum that like so _ so we
get this _ [Gb] _
_ [F] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [G] okay and one more time _ _ [Bbm] _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _
so we're nearly there with the introduction all that's left is
to just play the last little bit and for this we're going to use I'm going to show you how to
play a D7 chord but then we're just going to change it a little bit so grab the A string at
the fifth fret with your second [D] finger _ [Gb] grab the D string at the fourth fret with your first finger
_ [C] and we're going to grab the G string at the fifth fret with our third finger
_ [D] _
[C] so [Bb] we've just got that little fragment of a larger D7 [D] chord here [G] we could play the entire shape like
[D] that _ that would be with our first finger on the B string as well [G] but I don't really think there's
any need to and I think this one's slightly [Bb] easier to grab instead of playing at the fifth fret we're
going to start at the sixth fret [Eb] and play like a D sharp or an E flat 7 chord and then we're going
to move it down [Bm] to the fifth fret _ and again [Eb] it just creates this bit of tension and a bit of
movement in it like this [D] it _ [G] just sets up the first chord a little bit more there so if I play all of
that together now you can hear what it sounds like _ [Bbm] _ _ _ [F] _
_ [G] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ and one more time [G] now [Bbm] _ _
_ [F] _ _ [G] _ [Eb] _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ this works great on
electric guitar and it also works great on acoustic [Ab] guitar _
[Bbm] [Am] now [G] _ [Eb] _ [D] _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ [Bbm] _ [Am] _ [G] _ [Eb] _ [D] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
that D7 chord at the end here
[D] _ [Eb] that lasts for beats three and four before you start playing your chords so you need to think
like [D] this three [G] four one okay so it'd be [Gb] _ _ [F] _ [G] _ [Eb] _ [D]
three _ [G] four one if you [N] don't leave that gap you're going
to start too early and if you overlap that gap you're going to start too late so once you hit a
D7 chord three four and then start playing your 12 bar blues and that way it'll just fit really neatly
onto your chord [G] sequence [Gb] _ [F] _ _ [Eb] _ [Bm] _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ okay I'm going to show you how to match that to a 12 bar blues in any key
now if we think of our G7 bar chord down at the third fret _ _ we're starting the lick up at the
seventh fret so if we kind of count up four frets from that bar chord we'll find our starting
location so we're barring at the third _ count up four frets from there one two three four
make our little shape _ _
_ [Bbm] there's our [F] lick _ _ [G] _ _
so sort of count up four frets from your bar chord but
from the fret where you're actually playing the bar so in this case at the third fret
and that makes it really easy to match this around some other keys so let's show you a few
examples there say we were playing a blues in the key of A so for that my A7 bar chord
is at [A] the fifth fret so I _ need to count up four frets from there one _ two three four brings me up
to the ninth fret _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _
_ [F] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ [D] [N] and there's my intro in the key of A if I wanted to do it in the key of Bb say
my _ Bb7 [Bb] chord is at the sixth fret _ _ I'm barring at the sixth fret I count up four frets from there
one two three [G] four tenth [Bb] fret [A] _
_ [Ab] _ _ [Dm] _ [Gb] _ [F] _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ 12 bar blues intro in the key of Bb so work it out in a few common
keys that you usually play in and then you'll find it'll be really useful to know this lick
before we finish here's a little bonus trip you can try to get that kind of sound a bit like what
[Db] Jimi Hendrix gets on the intro to Red House and we're going to vibrato the notes [C] as we move [G] down
the neck like this _ [Gb] _
_ [F] _ [Bm] now [A] _ [Eb] _ [D] _ _
you may not want that but sometimes you might so let me show you how you can
do this we're playing our double stop shape here at the seventh fret as before and I'm just kind
of wobbling those [Db] notes as I [G] go _
[Gb] _ _ _ [F] _ _ [E] this [Eb] _
_ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [G] _
_ [Gb] _ _ [F] _ _ [Em] _ [A] _ [D] _
_ _ _ [G] almost sounds a little bit like you're playing it with
a slide as in slide guitar and it's just a bluesy sound effect that you might find some use for
so that's there if you want to use it so there you go that's it for this lesson really we've got our
12 bar blues introduction in the key of G and how to move it into any other key so that should be
really useful addition to your blues playing if you found this video useful then please subscribe
to my channel and check out all my other great blues guitar content on there like these videos
here for example please give the video a like and if you've got any comments or any requests for
videos that you'd like to see me make leave them below because I check all my comments and I do
respond to them so that's all for now thanks a lot for watching I hope to see you again very soon in
another one of my videos so take care and I'll see you next time
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _