How to Use Box Patterns to Play Blues Guitar

Playing a box pattern on a guitar is common when playing blues or bluegrass music. It requires using the chords as you stick to a basic major key in a box pattern. The one, four and five chords will include the exact same notes in the same order each time and will continue to be repeated in what is now a box pattern. Box patterns, along with trills, hammer-ons and other techniques, are the foundation of the blues style of music.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Use a major key when playing a box pattern on guitar. It is a substitute for playing a single chord at a time. No matter what the notes of a box pattern are, they stay the same. For example, starting with your first chord in the key of G, fourth chord in the key of C and the fifth chord in the key of D.
2. Play from the root to the octave to flat at the seventh and fifth range. If the pattern you play is referred to as a major scale, then it is definitely a box pattern.
3. Double up each note you play keeping it within the four to 12 measures using the one, four, five pattern.
4. Perform variations of the box pattern by adding trills. Trills are a series of pull-offs and hammer-ons. Trills go back and forth between a major and minor key at a rapid pace. Like a box pattern, trills repeat often when playing a blues guitar.