The 12-bar blues form — going around once

Today you finally go around the stage of the blues, the 12-bar form, once. A 12-bar blues is a playground map where three chords turn at fixed spots. Memorize the spots and you can follow any blues. It may look like a lot of bars at first, but it's really just three lines of four bars each. Think of it as memorizing one short map rather than a whole song, and it feels much lighter. The map of A blues looks like this.

One line is four bars, and three lines make 12 bars. Bars 1–4 are around home (A7), bars 5–8 visit the IV (D7), and bars 9–12 hit their most tense on the V (E7) and come back home. These last four bars are called the turnaround. The turnaround is where one lap wraps up and opens the door to the next, so it's the most dramatic four bars in the blues.

Today's real point is the quick change. After bar 1's A7, you pop over to D7 once in bar 2. Without it, bars 1–4 would be four bars of A7, but adding the quick change gives a much more blues-like flavor. Just remember that only bar 2 changes to D7. The rest of the spots are just repeats of the familiar A7, D7, and E7, so there's almost nothing new to memorize.

Let's gather the root spots of the three chords onto one board.

▶ 6th = E, 5th = A, 4th = D. The three open strings are the roots of E7, A7, and D7 respectively.

Now let's go around the 12 bars once with roots only. Pressing each bar's root as a whole note puts the map in your hands. The quick change (bar 2 D7) is right there too.

▶ One root per bar, BPM 80. Follow the chord symbols with your eyes and press the root string (5th, 4th, 6th) precisely. E7 appears for the first time in bar 9.

0–10 min · Warm-up BPM 65. Loosen your hand moving only the three roots across the 5 → 4 → 6 strings. Watch that you don't miss the root when you skip strings.

Practice just the hardest part, the turnaround (bars 9–12), on its own. It's E7 → D7 → A7 → E7.

▶ BPM 80. Bar 9 E7 → bar 10 D7 → bar 11 A7 → bar 12 E7. One downstroke per bar.

10–20 min · Brain training (today's target = the quick change) Memorize in advance that after bar 1's A7, bar 2 is D7. Count "A-D-A-A" out loud.

20–40 min · Real 12-bar cycling (BPM 80) Go around the 12 bars with roots only, without a break. Watch, counting with your foot, that you don't lose the bar count.

40–50 min · Recording / self-feedback (recommended) Record one lap of the 12 bars: did the quick change and the turnaround land in their places.

Today's completion criteria: You can cycle the 12-bar form, including the quick change, once around with roots only and without a break.

These are the spots that trip you up most when going around the 12 bars.

▶ Bar 2 is D7, not A7. The most common mistake is skipping the quick change and playing four bars of A7.

• You lose the bar count. Count 4 beats with your foot and count the bars. Every four bars, one line ends.
• You miss the bar 9 E7. The V comes just once, first appearing in bar 9. Get the 6th-string root ready ahead.
• You can't get back at bar 11. The end of the turnaround should return to A7 to feel natural.
• You rush the tempo. For the 12 bars, one lap matters even if it's slow. Lowering the BPM is fine.