Counting the twelve bars tells you where you are in the form. The feel tells you how to play inside each beat, and the feel at the heart of a great many blues is the shuffle. It is what makes a band sound as if it is swaying rather than marching, and you can learn it before you play a single chord.
Three ways to divide a beat
Straight eighths
Triplets
Swung eighths
Straight eighths, triplets and swung eighths, one bar of each, counted 1 &, 1 & a and 1 a.
Each beat is six cells here, so that halves and thirds of a beat can share one ruler. Straight eighths start on the first and fourth cells, so the two notes of each beat are equal. Triplets start on the first, third and fifth cells, so the three notes of each beat are equal. Swung eighths start on the first and fifth cells, which are the first and the last notes of the triplet, so the first note takes two thirds of the beat and the second takes one third.
Count in threes
Tap your foot on each beat and say one-and-a, two-and-a, three-and-a, four-and-a, with three even syllables to every tap. Those are triplets: the beat divided into three equal parts, which is the middle row of the grid.
Now keep counting in threes, but play only on the one and the a, and leave the and silent. That is the shuffle. The first note of each pair lasts two thirds of the beat and the second lasts one third, so the pair is long, then short. Play each row on one string and you will hear the difference: straight eighths are even, and swung eighths have the lilt you hear under a shuffle blues.
The shuffle riff
The first thing most players learn to play with a shuffle is a two-note riff on the bottom strings. In A, keep the open A string sounding and add the D string at the second fret, with your first finger, twice, as a long note and a short one. Then put your third finger on the fourth fret and play that pair twice. Each pair takes one beat, so a bar goes fifth, sixth, fifth, sixth over the open root.
The shuffle riff on A7
A7, on the A and D strings
The two-note shuffle riff on A7 (the A and D strings), played as swung eighths.
The open A string sounds under every note. Above it the D string plays the fifth for a beat and then the sixth for a beat: the second fret, then the fourth, each as a long and a short note.
Rest the edge of your picking hand lightly on the strings just in front of the bridge as you play. This is called palm muting, and it turns each note into a short, thick sound rather than a ringing one, which is how the riff sits under a band without covering it.
Round the twelve bars
The riff moves with the chords. Over D7 it moves up a string, onto the open D string with the G string above it, and over E7 it moves down to the open low E with the A string above it. The frets stay the same, because each of those pairs of strings is a fourth apart, so your hand keeps one shape all the way round the form.
The riff on each chord
A7, on the A and D strings
D7, on the D and G strings
E7, on the low E and A strings
The two-note shuffle riff on A7 (the A and D strings), D7 (the D and G strings) and E7 (the low E and A strings), played as swung eighths.
Each chord takes the same shape on its own pair of strings: A7 on the A and D strings, D7 on the D and G strings and E7 on the low E and A strings. The root is an open string every time, so the fifth and the sixth are always at the second and fourth frets.
The shuffle over the twelve bars
The twelve-bar blues in A: A7, A7, A7, A7, D7, D7, A7, A7, E7, D7, A7, E7.
Each bar gets one bar of the riff, on that bar’s chord.
The riff with a band
Band · twelve-bar blues in A · shuffle · 84 beats a minute
A band plays the twelve-bar blues in A, shuffled, at 84 beats a minute: A7, A7, A7, A7, D7, D7, A7, A7, E7, D7, A7, E7.
The same riff with drums and bass under it. Turn the guitar off in the player and play the riff yourself, palm muted, with the band.
This lesson was drafted with the help of AI, so it may contain a mistake. Its diagrams are drawn by Everyfret’s own software. How Everyfret is made