The Blues Chord Book

Every chord that makes a blues sound like the blues — and where to put them.

Most guitarists play the blues with three or four plain chords and quietly wonder why it doesn't sound like the records. It's almost never the picking, and it's almost never the gear. It's the chords.

The Blues Chord Book is the chord vocabulary that actually makes a blues sound like the blues — the 9ths, 13ths, the Hendrix 7#9, the sixths and the half-diminished grips — laid out as easy open chords and as compact, moveable "stabs" you can fire off anywhere on the neck. No impossible barre chords. No filler.

Work through it in a single sitting and you'll have the chords, the 12-bar forms they live in, and a feel for when to reach for each one — enough to comp a blues in any key and actually sound like you mean it.

What's inside:

• 11 essential blues chord types — dominant 7, 9, 13, 7#9, 7b9, 7sus4 and 6, plus minor 7, 9, 6 and 7b5
• Two ways to play every one — easy open chords down at the nut, and compact moveable stabs for anywhere on the neck
• The 12-bar forms — standard, quick-change and minor blues, mapped out bar by bar
• Four dressed-up blues — funk, soul, jazz and a fully extended standard, in four keys
• A substitution guide — when to reach for a 9, a 13 or a 7#9 instead of a plain 7, and where each one fits
• Every diagram checked note by note, so what's on the page is what comes out of the guitar

It's completely free. Download it, print it, and have a play.

— Graham

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