Jazz musicians often inject a little more colorful harmony into the blues, using what some call a gospel lift. This variation is extremely popular and can be heard in many blues performances - for example, in this session featuring Johnnie Johnson and this wonderful Ray Charles recording. The last bar also goes back to the V chord for what is called a turn-around, which is a way to set up the song to repeat. It adds a IV chord in bar 2 before going back to the I chord in bar 3: Rather than staying on the I chord for the first four bars, here’s a variation that’s often used instead. When played at slow tempos, the blues can evoke strong emotions, as you can hear in this recording from blues legend Pinetop Perkins. Both are using the same telltale I-IV-V chord progression, and seem to point the way for how rock ‘n’ roll grew out of rhythm and blues. Check out this Ray Charles performance, and then compare it to this Otis Spann song performed by guitarist Albert King. There are many examples of famous pianists using this classic blues form. However, it’s common for all the chords in a 12-bar blues progression to be played as dominant seventh chords, where a flatted-seventh is added to each chord, as shown below. So in this key, the C, F and G chords are used to play the blues: For example, these are the scale tone chords in the key of C: Musicians refer to the blues as being a I-IV-V progression, but what does that mean? Those roman numerals stand for the root, fourth and fifth scale tone chordsthat occur within any given key. Here’s a guide to the most common forms that make up the blues universe today. It has evolved greatly over the decades and now incorporates numerous variations adopted from rock ’n’ roll, jazz, gospel and many other styles of music. The blues is a form of music that developed in the late 19th century as a way for African Americans to express their suffering and emotional state.
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