Style Foundations: Blues and Rock

Intermediate · 2 lessons · Six weeks

The roots of all rock: the twelve-bar form and power chords — the tools you need to play real blues and real rock.

The roots of rock and roll

1. The Magic of Twelve Bars: The Blues Form

   Twelve bars, three chords, and one fixed running order that every player on earth knows by heart. It is also page one of rock and roll.

   What you'll learn

   • Know the twelve-bar grid and play a full cycle through without stopping.
   • Understand why the blues uses seventh chords rather than plain major chords.
   • Recognize the turnaround and what it does to keep the cycle rolling.
   • Play the progression in A and in E.
   • Tell straight playing and a shuffle apart by ear.

Power and distortion

1. Power Chords: The Engine of Heavy Rock

   Two notes, two fingers, one shape that slides anywhere on the neck — and the reason ordinary chords turn to mud under distortion.

   What you'll learn

   • Understand why a full chord falls apart under distortion and a power chord does not.
   • Play a power chord with two fingers and with three, rooted on the sixth string and on the fifth.
   • Name the chord from where the index finger is sitting.
   • Mute the strings you are not playing, using both hands.
   • Join three power chords into a riff and loop it.

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