GUITARHABITS

8 Ways to Play a 12 Bar Blues Shuffle in The Key of E

July 4, 2019 by Klaus Crow

Photo by Pablo Docal
Today I’ll show you 8 different ways to play a 12 Bar Blues shuffle. Blues shuffles sound really cool and the basic ones are not that hard to play.

In the first example I wrote out the entire 12 bar blues. In the other examples I just wrote out the alternatives to bar 1,2 and 9. More you don’t need, the rest of the bars is played the same way as those 3. Just play them in the right order. You’ll see what I mean once you’ve tried the first 12 bar blues.

The shuffle blues is one of the most common used rhythms in blues and so used by all the great blues artists like Clapton, BB King, Albert King, Robert Johnson etc. For those who are just starting out in blues, this is the backbone of blues rhtyhm guitar so I suggest you get your hands dirty. :)

If you want to read more about the origin of the blues shuffle and blues in general check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues

Enjoy!


12 Bar Blues Rhythm #1
e:-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
B:-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
G:-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
D:-------------|-22-44-22-44-|-------------|-------------|
A:-22-44-22-44-|-00-00-00-00-|-22-44-22-44-|-22-44-22-44-|
E:-00-00-00-00-|-------------|-00-00-00-00-|-00-00-00-00-|
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Back to Simplifying and Playing Guitar

By Klaus Crow 17 Comments

May 15, 2019 by Klaus Crow

Photo by Jeremy Jenum
I’m a big fan of efficiency and for quite a while I’ve been caught up in the internet efficiency mode.

But as I get older and wiser :) I come to realize the internet is not always as efficient or effective as it seems.

A lot of the tools on the internet like socialmedia, apps and cloudbased stuff that is supposed to make your life easier, (easier for you to communicate, network, save and share) will eventually leave you with just more work and more things to do. It doesn’t make your life easier, it makes it busier.

So I decided to quit facebook, quit twitter, quit saving my stuff online. Back to simplifying. And you know what? It feels great! Back to playing guitar and spending quality time with the family. That’s all there is to it.

Okay I could dive a little deeper and talk about those nice late morning cappuccinos, how I spend my days with coolest guitar workouts and that kind of stuff, but I’ll save that for later posts. Patience… please!

And then I also decided to give up goals. Meaning: Learning a certain skill or working on a project (how small it may be) with a deadline in mind. No more of that. Nowadays I wake up and just do whatever comes my way and do it passionately and mindfully. With the emphasis on “mindfully”.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a saying in how I spend my days, I certainly do, but my days flow more naturally and best of all…. I get more done without having the intention to do so. Try it and you’ll be pretty amazed. Just live in the moment and be open and openminded for whatever or whoever shows up on your path. You’ll come out as a better guitar player because of it.

I’ll leave you for now with a beautiful quote by Lao Tzu:
“The world is ruled by letting things take their course, it cannot be ruled by interfering.”

5 Beautiful Ways to Play a II-V-I Jazz Chord Progression

By Klaus Crow 24 Comments

September 7, 2023 by Klaus Crow

I just love figuring out different ways to play a jazz chord progression or just mixing up jazz chords with other styles of music.

It can add nice flavors to a song and give it some extra magic. It’s really fun to experiment with that.

Learning jazz expands your guitar vocabulary to a whole new level if you are ready for it.

In the meantime it’s just fun to play some beautiful jazz chord progressions and it will certainly contribute to your playing skills and creativity as well.

There are also more advanced II-V-I’s than the ones I show here but these are really nice to start out with and get your feet in the dirt. It can be a little bit overwhelming if you learn to play jazz chords and progressions for the first time, but after a few runs you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be amazed!

Online Tools For Guitar Players Worth Checking Out

By Klaus Crow 4 Comments

March 29, 2021 by Klaus Crow

Every now and then I’m on the look out for new handy tools online that makes the life of a guitar player easier, more efficient, effective and more comfortable.

Guitar playing and the stuff that comes with it like backing up your audiofiles, writing down your lyrics and music becomes even more enjoyable if you got the right tools for the job.

Or some nice blues backingtracks to improvise over. It makes practicing a hell of a lot more fun.

Let’s take a look at these guitar productivity tools:

– Blanksheetmusic.net Notation sheets for every instrument and vocals

– www.guitarvoice.com Awesome guitar backingtracks. Search by artist, random or genre.

– Crashplan.com Unlimited Online backup storage for all your precious audio files and everything else for only $3 a month

– Audio.online-convert.com Online audio/video/ebook converter

– Spotify is a really good sounding/looking Online Social Music Streaming Tool next to, Last.fm and Soundcloud

– Audio speed tempo pitch changer (reducing audiospeed while remaining pitch and vice versa)
for Windows: Windows Media Player 12
for Mac: Audiolobe

– Masterwriter.com Songwriter tool used by famous artists and producers including Rob Thomas and David Foster.

– The 150 Essential Chords Ebook I would be a fool not to recommend my own 150 Essential Chord Ebook. A good organized, categorized and easy to read chord book with a nice layout. Free to download.

– Reading sheet music:
A short version:www.musictheory.net
An extended version: www.readsheetmusic.info

– More Tools 21-must-have-online-musician-tools-for-guitar-players

If you know some cool guitar productivity tools, please share it in the comments.

I appreciate it.
Klaus Crow

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