An Exciting Texas Blues Lesson Chord Progression on Guitar

Want to play some smokin’ hot blues chord progression that is easy to learn and play? Then this video is just right for you. This is a very interesting blues guitar lesson by famous guitar tutor Nick Minnion from UK who teaches you some basic Texas Blues Guitar style on an Acoustic Guitar.

There are just 3 chords in this lesson, which are E7, A7 and B7. They are known as Dominant 7th

Chords and also denoted as E Dom 7th, A Dom 7th and B Dom 7th. Dominant 7th Chords are derived from a Major scale by adding a flatted 7th (denoted as b7).

Confused? Don’t panic! I am going to explain how to derive these 3 chords - in this post.

So first let us learn how to derive a Major Scale.

The formula for building a Major Scale is Whole Step-Whole Step-Half Step- Whole Step -Whole Step -Whole Step-Half Step Or also denoted as W-W-H-W-W-W-H

What are Whole Steps and Half Steps?

Whole and Half Steps are nothing but musical intervals. A Whole Step is one fret apart (e.g. 1st to 3rd

Fret or 3rd to 5th and so on) and a Half Step is the next immediate fret (e.g. 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 8 to 9 and so on)

So we can say that the interval between 1st to 3rd fret on the guitar is a Whole Step (a.k.a Whole Tone) and the interval between 1st to 2nd fret is a Half Step (a.k.a. Semi Tone)

Now I am sure now you understood what Whole and Half Steps are.

Deriving E Major Scale

Now let’s apply the Major Scale formula that we discussed earlier to derive E Major scale. Since we are deriving E Major Scale we need to start from the note E (For convenience you can use the E Note on the 4th string which is on the 2nd fret).

And we got the E Major Scale notes as E F# G# A B C# D# E (W-W-H-W-W-W-H).

E - F# => Whole StepF# - G# => Whole StepG# - A => Half StepA – B => Whole StepB – C# => Whole StepC# - D# => Whole StepD# - E = > Half Step

You can test it out for yourself and see whether the notes are correct as per the formula. Now I am sure you can easily derive A Major and B Major Scales like a charm.

A and B Major Scales

So the A Major Scale Notes are A B C# D E F# G# A

And B Major Scale Notes are B C# D# E F# G# A# B

Major Chord Formula

Formula for building a Major Chord is 1-3-5 which means you have to play the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the Major Scale together to get a Major Chord.

So the notes for E Major Chord will be E G# and B

Dominant 7th Chord formula

Similarly, the formula for building Dominant 7th Chords is 1-3-5-b7. (b7 is Flatted 7th note which means you have to lower the 7th note by a half step)

E7, A7 and B7 Chord Notes

By applying the above formula, you can derive the notes for E Dominant 7th as E G# B and D

And A7 (or A Dominant 7th) notes as A C# E G

And B7 (or B Dominant 7th) notes as B D# F# A

Now the following Texas Blues Guitar lesson by Nick will be much easier for you. So enjoy the video and please let me know how you found it!

The video link for this lesson is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zs4oFM9MqIc

For more interesting guitar lessons please visit my guitar blog @ http://www.onlineguitarschools.com/GuitarBlog/