Turnarounds (Blues Rhythm Guitar - Guitar Lesson BL-209) How to play

This 9th guitar lesson in the blues rhythm guitar series looks at how to play turnarounds!

The backing track is free on the web site!

The whole series plus bonus lessons are available now on DVD with 3 bonus lessons, mp3's of all the backing tracks and pdf booklet - see the web site for details.

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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.

Hi, how'ya doing? Justin here.

Welcome to lesson 9
of the Blues Rhythm guitar series

and in this lesson today,
we are going to be talking about turnarounds.

Now a turnaround is the last two bars
of a twelve bar blues

and there are a lots different kind
of chord progressions

you can use to turn the song around
so it goes around again.

Now sometimes it is predetermined

so specific songs have a particular turnaround
that it is being used

that happens most times.

Other times the band kinda get together

and decide "Hey, on this song
we are gonna use this."

On other times if it is a bit on the fly
you have to be listening out to the bass player

or the bass player has to be listening to you

to try and suss out
what turnaround is gonna happen.

It is a lot more fun
when it's kind of a bit more up in the air

and you don't know what's going to happen

it can make for some interesting notes happening

but if you are aware of all of the different turnarounds

you'll probably start to pick up
"Oh, it feels like it's gonna be this one!"

or "it sounds like", or

"the first chord is this one
so it's gotta be this particular turnaround."

So that's the idea here.

For the backing track,
I have picked five of the common turnarounds

and done them in succession. So
I'm going to show you those five first,

now I'm going to show you
some others as well,

just in a close up and show you some different ways

that you might approach playing them.

As part of the Blues Lead Guitar course
there's also a lesson on turnarounds,

because very often the turnaround is hosted
by the lead guitar player.

They play the melodic part that really says,
"Yeah, we're going to turnaround all",

"Yeah, we're gonna end the tune."

So it's important to check that
lesson out as well.

And be aware that sometimes
there isn't a turnaround as well,

there are quite a few tunes with the blues chord sequences I call the Long One,

which is where the last two bars
of a 12 bar blues sequence

just play the 1 chord for the whole two bars.

In that case it's usually down to the drummer
to make some sort of fill thing that says,

"Hey, we're finishing the tune
and going back around again"

It's quite often that that happens.

Don't think that it's uncommon for there
to be not a turnaround.

It is probably more common
for there to be one,

and that's why we're gonna do this lesson.

That's enough rambling from me,

let's get to a close up
and check out how to play some.

The lesson today is going to be based in the
key of D. So just to refresh your memory

we've got D here, is the 1 chord,

G at the third fret there is the 4 chord,

and A at the 5th fret - 6th string
root of course - is the 5 chord.

♪

Just playing through a regular blues.

♪

Just so you're 100% sure
where the turnaround is.

♪

There's the bit with the 5 chord.

♪

To the 4 chord.

♪

And now is where the turnaround is.
What I'm going to be showing you now

are things to go at this point in the blues.
The last two bars of a 12 bar blues.

One of the most common is just to put the
5 chord at the end for two beats.

So we'd have
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, & 3 & 4, & 1.

Just literally that & 4 & 1.

Again, the last two bars
of the Blues in D, 3 4,

is D 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4.

So it can just move over just for those
last two beats of the whole sequence,

just moves over to the 5 chord,

then we're back to the 1 chord, right away

This is really common, particularly
like earlier Blues stuff,

it's more common than any other one.

So, be aware of that one first of all.

Now the second one in our sequence for
the backing track, is a little climb-up.

Which is again really popular, it happens
in the second bar of our two bar sequence.

So we have one bar of D,
the second bar goes

♪

I'm sure you've heard that before, it's a
really common little sequence again.

1 2 3 4 1 & 2 & 3 4

1 2 3 4 1 & 2 & 3 4

It doesn't always have to be with the chunka-chunka thing, by the way, it could be:

♪

It could use:

♪

That was a little 9th chord.

You can do all sorts of things, I'm just
using a chunka-chunka as an example.

But you could use any
different type of sequence

that we've been looking at
so far to get:

♪

is a little two note there,
if you want:

♪

There's really infinite number of ways of using each of these different things.

That's the one I normally call it the climb,
and we're going to put a climb at the end

in the turnaround, would be the kind of thing
that you'd ask your bass player.

So that would be a little climb.

Now the 3rd one we've got here
is a variation on the two really, where we go:

1

4

1

5

And then we starting the sequence again.

This is a very common little sequence.

1

4

1

5

Could be played.

♪

or

♪

Again, loads of different ways.

♪

All the same thing, just as long as it's

1

4

1

5

I'd recommend most of these runs just doing a regular chunka-chunka.

♪

Just to get used to
what the chord changes are.

It's a nice easy way of
looking at it to start off with,

then worry about jazzing all of the chords up,
if you like that kind of style.

So the next one, which is number 4,
is what's called a 1, 6, 2, 5.

Again this has kind of got it's roots in Jazz,
I guess. You kind of get this:

♪

This kind of effect, but it does happen
even in a chunka-chunka:

♪

It does happen like that,
using a regular kind of Blues progressions.

So this one, whether it is the
1, 6, 2, 5 of the scale.

Now you know that
our Blues so far is just 1, 4, and 5.

If that's 4, 5, there's 6. If that's 1, there's 2.
So that's where you can think:

1

6

2

5

♪

And again, make sure that you check out,-
I'm sure you're going to already, 'cause I know

that you're conscientious about
making sure that you'll get

everything with your 5th string root and 6th string root, aren't you?

So make sure that you figure out where

1

6

2

5

Is going to be if we started up here.

1

6

2

5

or 1

6

2

5

1

Hey, might recognize

♪

That I talked about in the little lesson that where we looked at the little mini grips.

That's another really common sequence that you might want to try out.

And the last one I'm showing you is a 1, flat 3, to flat 2 sequence.

Which is a chromatic thing, there's some fancier reasons to do with chord substitutions,

that we can get into at another time,

but for now I think you should just keep it simple and playing,

1

move up three frets

back

back 1

and then we're back at the middle.

And you can use either chord.

♪

That kind of thing if you're doing it in chords. Or it could be

♪

It can be chunka-chunka, all of these things, they can be fancy chords,

or they can be a regular power chord chunka-chunka thing, whatever you want to do.

It's important you explore all of those different ideas, it's not just one thing or the other.

So that's all of the ones that are used on the backing track.

Remember, there are charts on the web site which will help you remember

the order of them on the backing track, and exactly what chords are in what ones.

So I'd highly recommend that you go to the web site and check that out,

it really will make life a lot easier for you.

There are some other kind of turnarounds that are pretty common,

and sound pretty cool, I couldn't fit them all on the backing track, so

I thought I'd show them to you anyway and you can apply them to other backing tracks

from this series, or just jam around with them with your mates or whatever.

So the first one is kind of this descending line, often played by a bass player,

but it sounds pretty cool on guitar as well. It's just these notes.

♪

You can play it as power chords as well, if you like.

What we're doing is starting
with the root note.

Moving down a tone. And then chromatically down to the 5 chord.

Which in this key is the key of A.

I know you're gonna do your homework and transfer it over to the

6th string root stuff as well,
and figure out how to play each one.

Of course you could move down a tone,

but move to the C here.
So from C to D, instead go D to C.

♪

This is a really common little sequence.
Like I said, often the guitar will just do this.

♪

And the bass player will have the,

bum, bum, bah, bah, bumpa, bumpa
that kind of thing.

I think it's a cool

♪

So that's the first one of the extras.
Now the second one is just playing the chord.

Now I know it's like, "What do you mean?
That's pretty easy."

But if you get like a real:

♪

Often if it's a chunka-chunka chunka thing, a chunka-chunka chunka-chunka,

you've got an to extra chunka in there.

If you're doing this kind of thing
and it gets to the 5 chord,

you don't always want to
keep going with your chunkas.

You might want to just end up
playing the chord.

As I'm going to do when we get
to the chunkas on this bit.

♪

Here you

♪

Just for that one bit.

♪

Going to the full chord. If you've got a fifth string root,

you might use a 9th chord, or

might've used the 9th
chord here with the 6th string root.

Up to you of course, and that's
part of the game, it's your choice.

But I think it's important to realize that
can be a valid turnaround,

just switching from doing this kind of thing.

♪

To bit of a strummy thing on a chord,
it can sound pretty funky, I reckon.

That's a good one.

Now the next one I'm going to show you is
related to this line going down.

♪

Because often the bass will go up.

♪

And this is what I was going to show you.

♪

Just because I think it sounds cool.

♪

From the D.

1

2

3

4

1

And then we're on the A.

♪

D

So we've just got our first finger
on the 4th fret,

little finger on the 7th fret,
which is the root note.

♪

Use whatever fingers you like there,
it doesn't...

seams to be that I changed
depending on what day it is.

♪

Experiment with that.

Of course if you use your little finger on the root note

the same idea will work fine up here.

♪

So you could have.

♪

You can have it up there too.

♪

So I think that's a pretty funky little number.

A little more interesting than the standard one.

There's one even more interesting idea

that I'm gonna share with you
on this to explore on your own.

But the last one I want to go through
with you properly is a sharp 5 to the 5.

Which is a real common . . .

♪

Again, just doing a chord, and moving it from the 5 chord and moving up one fret

♪

and back down again.

♪

And off you go.

Now the last idea is quite a biggie, and I just want to explain the idea to you,

and then let you run around with it a little bit.

The first thing is to realize that we had
this descending line,

♪

Which worked in the turnaround
to get to A7.

Then we also saw that we had,

♪

this ascending line. But what would
happen if you did the two together?

So if you're here, one went up,
one went down,

and then this one continues going down,

this one continues going up,
and that one continues going up,

we end up with this really cool idea
called contrary motion.

♪

And this idea is a real funky one.
There's one of my favorite little pet licks for

♪

One going down,

♪

one going up.

♪

I really like the sound of that.

Just as a little idea, why don't you see how many different ways

you can figure out of playing this. Having one line going down,

which would be the notes

D

C

B

B flat

Leading to A

and the other one going

D

up to F sharp

G

G sharp

A

It's just a fun little game for yourselves to play

♪

as a little exercise on the guitar, it could keep you occupied for an afternoon,

and give you some really cool fun licks.

Like with nearly everything on guitar the most important thing here is to put it into practice.

So make sure that you muck around with each of the different turnarounds,

get as many of them as you can to memory, and most importantly, make sure you can play

all of the ones that I'd shown you
with the sixth string root.

At the moment we've done all of them with the fifth string root,

I'm not going to show you the sixth string root ones. I want you to try to figure them all out.

It's not difficult, and if it is difficult, you need to sort it out, and make sure

that you learn how to do it,
so it's not difficult any more.

It's something I think it's an essential
bit of your knowledge

that you need to fill in,
if you can't do that.

And the other really important thing to do at this stage as well is to listen to some blues,

and make sure you can
spot the different turnarounds.

Get some great blues records that you like,

some Muddy Waters, or Stones,
or Howlin' Wolf, or whatever,

and check out the different turnarounds
and suss out and go:

"Oh, he's used that turnaround there."

And then see if they do the same turnaround through the whole song,

and does it make it part of the song?

That's a really good way of developing your repertoire a bit, and making sure,

you learn the correct chord progressions for each different 12 bar blues.

Because when I was growing up I always just thought: "oh, it's a 12 bar blues"

and they're all the same
and you can do what you like.

But as I studied a bit more, I found
that's not the case at all.

They are quite distinct, and the guys that caught them real good, whether it'is

Stevie Ray Vaughn, or The Rolling Stones,

or whatever, any of the more modern
"white" guitar players.

If you listen to them play older songs, you hear that they've really absorbed it properly.

They've learned exactly what the chord progressions are and the right way it was played.

Probably my favorite example is The Rolling Stones playing Little Red Rooster.

If you find the original version of that one, which I believe is a Howlin' Wolf one,

there's a mistake in the chord,
where the bass doesn't

go to the chord at the same time, and then the whole band jumps over.

And they've copied that in their version.

I just thought it was a mistake, but it wasn't and they've copied it, and they've learned it really well.

So let me play you out with a backing track, and remember the chart is on the web site,

that's going to make it
a lot easier for you if you use that.

And I'll see you for another lesson very soon.

Take care of yourselves.
Bye bye.