How to Write a Blues Song

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Athena Reich and I'm a singer, songwriter and music host here in New York City. In this clip I'm going to talk about how to write a blues song. So a blues song has a basic 12 bar blue structure. We got over each Roman numeral represents a bar. So this would be, let's say talk about the blues and E, its really easy to play the blues in E on the guitar. The E E E E and 4, so you'll go 4 from E. E A B C D E F G A so it will be A A E E B because its 5, B A E E and this the turnaround 5 if you want to keep going. So that's it, you just basically follow that chord progression and many people think that the blues are always sad but actually its just heartfelt. You can have all kinds of feelings and emotions in it and when you're writing your lyrics you can have repetition and usually by the time you come to the end of the 12 bar blues progression, you've got your real punchline, you've got the real meaning, the real heart of what you're trying to say. So it kind of goes like this, this is the E. This would be A and 4, E. 4, 1, 5. There you go, there's the blues. This has been Athena Reich in New York City."