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Hi, how you doin'? Justin here.

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In this lesson today, we're going to be checking out 
a traditional 12 bar blues,

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using a chunka chunka rhythm.
Now a chunka chunka rhythm is just a word

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that my teacher taught me to describe
this shuffle which we talked about earlier,

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where we talked about like strumming it,
now we're doing like a proper

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12 bar blues style.
So let me just play it for you first once through.

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I'll play it in a medium up tempo
just so it doesn't take too long

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but we're going to be taking through it nice and slowly.
So this is what it sounds like.

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3, 4,

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. . .

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That's it, straight ahead 12 bar blues. 
You can hear chunka chunka

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chunka, chunka,
is where you get that little rhythm from.

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So it's pretty straight forward.
The big thing that you have to deal with here

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is that you're playing two strings at a time.


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Now we're going to start off by going to a close up of this

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in just a second, but we're just going to be using
one finger. It's going to be on the note E,

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and we're going to be playing two strings
on this very first chord.

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It's going to be an A chord. We're going to be playing
the open A string, which is the 5th string.

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Hopefully you know that by now, because
you know your open string note names, don't you?

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And also the 4th string, which is the one with the note E,

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1st finger playing the 2nd fret of the 4th string.

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and we're going to play those two notes (plays)
then again (plays)

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and then our 3rd finger is going to go down
on the same string

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as the 1st finger
and your plucking the same two notes.

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So remember while we're on the A chord,
which is the first thing we're going to look at

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in a second on the close up, you just
want to be playing the 5th string

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and the 4th string, and you're going to be using all

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down picks for this whole exercise. 
OK, let's go to a close up.

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So here we go, here's the 1st finger
in the 2nd fret of the 4th string

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and we're going to be playing
the open A string and this note (plays)

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and the 1st finger kind of lifts up a little bit
to make sure those other strings

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underneath it are a bit muted.
It doesn't really matter so much on acoustic guitar

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but maybe on electric guitar it will make a difference,
so you might as well get in a habit of muting

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those strings as well while you're at it.
So you're going to do two picks on this

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. . .

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then your 3rd finger is going to go down two frets further

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which is 4th fret on the same string
that your 1st finger is on,

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which is of course the fourth string.

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. . .

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Then we go back again, 1st finger (plays),
3rd finger (plays).

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1st finger, 3rd finger down. (plays)

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Now I just played one bar, so the count for that will be

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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So that will just be one bar.

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If you look at the sheet music for this,
you will probably notice

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that we do 4 bars of A, maybe you will even remember

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the sheet music for this,
from playing the 12 bar blues

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with a shuffle rhythm before, with the strumming.

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Hopefully you remember at least the pattern,
the order of the chords.

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If not, you need to check out the sheet music
on the web site, then get back to here.

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So here we go. Now we're going to do this A chord
for 4 bars. So we have

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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2nd bar and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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3rd bar, and 2 and 3 and 4,

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and 4th bar, and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

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Now we go to the D. What we're going to do,
is simply move our 1st finger over,

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like toward the ground one string,
and the note the 3rd finger will go on

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will also move toward the ground one string.

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But whenever we change strings,

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we start with just the 1st finger on and that's it.
And we do two bars now on the D.

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Of course the strings that we pick have also changed.

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We're now picking the middle two strings.
Here we go for the D

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(plays) 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4,

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and back to A, and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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1, now to E, we've moved 1st finger up
toward the ceiling one string

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so it's now on the 5th string
and we're plucking the open E string

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the lowest, fattest, thickest string
and this note here

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with the 1st finger.
We do 1 bar on E,

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and,
big jump all the way to D,

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, 
1, we're back on A now, 3, and,

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then down to E again, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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Now it's really important here, that you
keep that 1st finger back in that 2nd fret,

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try to avoid going 1 and 2 and 3,
this kind of thing.

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That's really bad form. Try and get those fingers
nicely spread out all of the way through.

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So I'm going to play now,
once through this whole thing

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really slowly to let you have a go
at playing along with it

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Really try to get the feeling for this
'chunka chunka chunka chunka'-feeling; the shuffle.

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Because it's an integral part of playing this style.

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Also make sure you are picking just the right strings

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It's kind of difficult sometimes to make sure
you're picking the open string,

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as well as the fretted note.
And partly this is because your pick hand

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has got quite used to playing where your finger is,


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and suddenly you have to pick on the
thick string above,

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physically above the string your finger is on.
So this hand is kind of,

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if it's developing a sense of connection
with the other hand,

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you're having to break it for this exercise.

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That's why it can be a little bit sticky sometimes.
Here we go, nice and slow, 3, 4,

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(plays) 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and,

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here's the 3rd bar,

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2 and 3 and 4 and the 4th bar,

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and 2 and 3 and 4 and now over to D,

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and the 2nd bar

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and 2 and 3 and 4 and

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back to A and 2 and 3 and 4 and again,

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and 2 and 3 and 4, big jump over to E

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and 2 and 3 and 4, right over to D,
2 and 3 and 4 and

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back to A, and 2 and 3 and 4

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and E and 2 and 3 and 4 and, A.

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Always a good idea to finish this blues on an A,
it kind of makes it sound finished.

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If you just stop on E, it sounds weird.
So the thing you're going for now,

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really trying to make sure that you don't stop
in between the chord changes,

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trying to make sure that you pick the right strings,
and that you get the groove really nice.

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This 12 bar blues is in the key of A fits perfectly
with the A minor pentatonic that we've been looking at.

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If you have a jam buddy,
someone you've been doing some practice with,

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one guy can sit down and play the 12 bar blues,
and the other guy can muck around

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with the A minor pentatonic scale
and make up a solo over the top.

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That's how these two things kind of link together,
very, very cool fun. We're going talk about that

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a little bit more later on. For now what you want to do
is really work on getting that

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12 bar blues rhythm style properly solid.

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So, I hope you enjoyed that look at the blues

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and I'll see you for another lesson sometime real soon.