• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Howcast

Howcast

The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides.

  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health
  • Home & Garden
  • Relationships
  • Explore Guides
  • Contact
  • About
  • FAQs
  • Explore Guides
  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health & Wellness
  • Love & Relationships
  • Home & Garden
EntertainmentHow to Play Country Guitar

How to Play 12-Bar Blues in Country Guitar

Transcript

Twelve bar blues in country music is something that Hank Williams was especially prolific at and did better than anybody. It’s really just twelve measures. You’ve got sometimes just four measure of the one chord if we’re in the key of E.

We’re going to use E, A, B7. We might want to use E7, A7 instead of just E triad and an A triad we could just use all seventh chords. And of course B7 is the five chord. So we’re going to go like this 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1. Okay so that was basically two bars for each chord except at the top we’ve got four bars of the E chord. At the end of the form you’ve got one bar of B7, one bar of A7 and then you’ve got two bars of E7 to finish the form. Some people might throw a B7 in for the last. Even the last two beats, they might sound something like this. Top again.

So that’s your basic twelve bar blues which you could use in any number of country standards and obviously the blues genre is full of twelve bar blues. So have fun with that and we’ll see you next time.


Lessons in this Guide

How to Play Country Guitar with Boo Reiners

How to Play Country Guitar like Vince Gill

How to Play Country Guitar like Hank Williams

How to Play Electric Guitar like Johnny Cash

How to Play Acoustic Guitar like Johnny Cash

How to Play Chet Atkins Style Country Guitar

How to Play Doc Watson Style Country Guitar

How to Play Travis Picking Style Country Guitar

How to Play “Mother” Maybelle Carter Style Country Guitar

How to Play Jimmie Rogers Style Country Guitar

How to Use Amp Effects & Pedals in Country Guitar

How to Comp on Electric Guitar in Country Music

How to Comp on Acoustic Guitar in Country Music

How to Play Pedal Steel Licks on a B-Bender Guitar

How to Use a B-Bender Guitar

How to Play Pedal Steel Licks in Country Guitar

How to Play Pedal Steel Bends in Country Guitar

How to Bend Strings in Country Guitar

How to Play Boogie Rhythm Patterns in Country Guitar

How to Play 12-Bar Blues in Country Guitar

How to Play Chicken Pickin’ Style Country Guitar Licks

How to Play a Solo in a Country Guitar Ballad

How to Play Movable Chord Shapes in Country Guitar

How to Play w. Drone Note or “Pedal” Tone in Country Guitar

How to Play Grace Notes in Country Guitar

How to Play 6ths on Country Guitar

How to Play Double Stops in Thirds on Country Guitar

How to Play Vibrato on Country Guitar

How to Play with a Bottleneck Slide in Country Guitar

How to Play the Blues Scale on Country Guitar

How to Play a Minor Scale in Country Guitar

How to Play a Minor Pentatonic Scale in Country Guitar

How to Play a Major Scale in Country Guitar

How to Play a Major Pentatonic Scale in Country Guitar

How to Play Melodies Using Intervals on Country Guitar

How to Play a Sliding Note on Country Guitar

Copyright © 2026 · Howcast · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Ventures with Springwire.ai

Privacy Manager