« | Home | »

Alternative Blues Chord Progressions

By Mike Hayes | July 31, 2010

I remember driving for four hours to attend a lesson with one of
my guitar playing idols Don Andrews as I arrived at his house I
realized that I was so overawed at the prospect of finally
meeting this legendary player that I could not bring myself to
stop the car, so I continued to drive around the block; I must
have done this five or six times before I realized that it was
now or never; if I couldn’t bring myself to stop the car I would
miss my lesson and have driven four hours for nothing.

Finally, with all the courage I could muster I brought the
vehicle to a stop outside of Don’s home, I sat motionless stunned
and dazed in the front seat wondering what I would do next then
before I could think about starting up the motor and heading for
the hills I noticed Don standing near the drivers window (he must
have seen my previous drive by attempts to stop, although he
never said anything).

Don helped my with my equipment then all of a sudden without
warning just as I was about to enter his teaching studio
“what was I going to play for Don”? I had prepared tons of
impressive stuff so there wasn’t any shortage of material to
perform it was more a question of ‘what was I going to play for
that he hadn’t heard before.’

At that very moment I suddenly realized that I had spent most of
my time copying Don’s solos note-for-note and while I had done
quite an adequate job of copying his playing and it was certainly
cool when I was playing his chord solos at weddings and dances it
made me sound good (better than I deserved to sound) however with
Don standing in front of me I immediately realized two things (a)
I was not going to be able to impress Don with his own stuff and
(b) that music does not ask you to be yourself, it demands it!

Everything became clear and I heard the message loud and clear.

“DON’T COPY”

What a pity I hadn’t thought of this earlier (like well before
the lesson would have been a good time).

The rest of the morning was a blur, Don is a marvelous person and
did his best to put me a ease, I managed struggle on and mangle a
few innocent pieces of music and tried like crazy not to play
things I had copied from other players but had I received my REAL
lesson earlier that day when I had learned that the most
important thing for me was to find my own in music and play my
own way.

Since the blues is the basis for so much music it’s always an
good place to try your new ideas. Progression #1 is a familiar
blues progression followed by an interesting variation for you to
try. Both examples are presented in the key of ‘C’.

Progression #1:

C /// | G /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| G7/// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

progression #2: variation of original progression

CMaj9 /// | G+7b9 /// | Cmaj9 /// | Gm7 / C13b9 / |

Fmaj9 /// | Fm9 / Bb13 / | Em9 /A13/ | Ebm9 /Ab13 / |

Dm9 ///| Db7#9 /// | Cmaj9 /// | Db6/9b5 /// || Cmaj9 (last time)

Experiment with different chord textures to find the best set of
chords for your particular musical application and don’t forget
to keep your ear peeled for any new sounds you like.

Topics: Guitar Tips | No Comments »

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.