12 Bar Blues on the ukulele

In case you're wondering, I'm not the only person who provides a tutorial on the 12 bar blues. I hope my tutorial is clear enough to keep you from running away.

The video will help you count out this progression, but let me just write it out real quick.

What's a bar? A bar is a measurement in a song. I think most "popular" songs have a four count, but occasionally you'll find a song with a three count. Three counts are most commonly recognized in a waltz. There are other counts, but you're not going to see those in any music I'm going to teach.

We are focusing on a four count bar, and of course, the "12 bar blues" is going to be 12 counts of four. Make sense so far?

To start the practice, focus only on downstrokes, and count it out. "1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . ."

Using the chords C, F and G, the progression goes:

C: 4 bars

F: 2 bars

C: 2 bars

G: 1 bar

F: 1 bar

C: 2 bars

repeat.

You can do this progression with these other major chords (respective to C, F and G):

E, A and B

G, C and D

A, D and E

D, G and A

The benefit of playing the songs with different chords is how high or low your voice can go.

A few examples of songs with this progression:

Can't Buy Me Love
Hound Dog
Great Balls of Fire

There's more examples, so let me leave it up to you to tell me what they are.