Beginner Guitar Lesson 18 - The Moving Chord

Now that you have a basic blues progression in your repertoire, we can move on to another much used concept in the blues... the moving chord.   This time we're going to be working in the key of E, so our first point of departure is the E7 chord. And this time we are going to be playing a 6 beat in a bar shuffle, otherwise called a 6/8 shuffle, which is very common in the Blues.

In case you forgot what E7 looks like, here's a reminder...

You've probably heard the riff from John Lee Hooker's "Hoochie Coochie Man." Well, this is based on that riff. It's dead simple; all you have to do is move the E7 shape up to the 7th (A7) fret for a couple of beats, then down to the 5th fret (G7) for a beat, and then back to E7 (2nd fret). The major difference that we need to get accustomed to is playing in 6/8. Instead of having four beats in a bar, we now have 6! But this is not so difficult. It's just a matter of getting used to the feel of it.  

Have a look at the example video to get a good feel for it, and if you can, find a version of "Hoochie Coochie Man" and have a good listen to that, too.  

The pattern is illustrated below. Remember the A7 is the same as the E7 shape played on the 7th fret, and the G7 is the same on the 5th fret. Now let's begin.  

E7              E7               E7             A7      G7

1---2---3---4---5---6--|--1---2---3---4---5---6---  

D               D                 D               D         U

NB. The red D and U illustrate the strumming motion "down" or "up." Here it is in notation & TAB.         

                   E7      E7          E7    A7    G7     E7    E7          E7     A7  G7

 

This is a very useful pattern that can be translated into any key. Now that you are prepared, let's put it into practice. Set your metronome to a 6/8 pattern at about 100 bpm for 5 minutes. You should hear the first beat as a stronger beat and the other 5 at a lower but even velocity. 

As I mentioned before, the same pattern can be translated up a string in the Key of A, which is what we’re going to take a look at now.

Voice your A7 chord:

Now, just like we did with the E7, you’re going to move that shape up to the 7th fret (D7) for 2 beats, down to the 5th fret (C7) for 1 beat, and then back to the 2nd fret (A7). However, this time, do not hit the thick E string. Simply strum through from the open A string so it will sound cleaner. Here is what the pattern looks like in TAB.

Again, practice this melody as before at 100bpm in 6/8 for 5 minutes.

Great work! Now that you’ve got that down, let's practice changing between the riff in E7 and in A7. For this, I want you to play the riff twice in E and twice in A.

Well done! You've accomplished a great deal in this article. You should be getting really good on the guitar right now, but we don't want to move too fast or we might miss something! For your practice sessions, repeat this pattern at 120  bpm for 5 minutes every day, and also try to figure out how you'd play this pattern in D. Once you think you've figured it out, try to write it down in TAB form. You'll be surprised how well you remember things once you've written them down yourself.