How to Play Blues-Style Jazz Guitar

Blues-style jazz is created to break the rules. You can get some fantastic blues sounds by altering three chord progressions slightly and adding some additional twists to the creation. Find a key that you're comfortable playing and try this exercise to play the blues-style jazz guitar.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Break the rules. Normally the first chord in a three-chord progression will be a one major chord. When you play the progression, you use the dominant seven as the first chord. Adding the flat to the seventh note gives a little discord and jazzy effect.

2. Throw in a dominant seventh on the fourth chord of the progression. Again the slight discord you create by adding the dominant seventh to the fourth chord puts you in the mode for the blues-style jazz guitar.

3. Add the five dominant seventh for the last chord. This is the only chord that is normally part of a major three chord progression.

4. Strum the blues-style jazz guitar at one strum per beat, four beats per measure when you are first starting out. Strum on the downbeat first, strumming the one dominant seven for one measure, then the four dominant seven for one. Next strum the one dominant seven for two measures, the four dominant seven for two measure, and back to the one dominant seven for two more chords. Move to five dominant, four dominant seven, one dominant seven and back to five dominant seven all for one measure.

5. Add other chords to fill out the tune and slides to reach the chord. This gives the bluesy sound.

6. Walk down or up the scale to give some individualization on the progression.