The Blues Form
Harmonically the blues is very simple, with only 3 different chords that is divided over a form of 12 bars. There is different types of Blues, 32 bar blues, 16 bar blues, but in this lesson we will focus on the most common 12-bar blues.
Let’s take a look at this 12-bar blues in E major.
The blues is played in the time signature 4/4, which means that you count “1 2 3 4” in each bar.
12-bar blues in E.
![12 Bar in E 12 Bar in E](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/12-Bar-in-E.png)
Chords
Here is the following chord diagrams:
7-chord
![E Chord 1 E Chord 1](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/E-Chord-1-159x300.png)
![A Chord A Chord](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/A-Chord-159x300.png)
![B Chord B Chord](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/B-Chord-159x300.png)
You can also play all these chords as 7-chords. Which means that you add an extra note to the chords, to give them a different sound. Then the 12-bar blues will look like this:
![12Bar in E7 12Bar in E7](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/12Bar-in-E7.png)
Here is the chord charts for the 7-chords:
![E7 Chord E7 Chord](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/E7-Chord-159x300.png)
![A7 Chord A7 Chord](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/A7-Chord-159x300.png)
![B7 Chord B7 Chord](https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/B7-Chord-159x300.png)