4 Ways To Play The Blues - Blues Chords Every Guitarist Should Know
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Great blues rhythm guitar isn't about big barre chords — it's about getting up high and playing tight, stabby voicings like a horn section. Here's how four chord shapes can carry you around an entire blues.
What you'll learn
- Get up on the top three or four strings and play stabby "horn-section" voicings
- Learn one voicing for each chord tone on top — root, 3rd, 5th, and ♭7
- Learn those same four shapes for the IV and V to connect around the whole blues
- Use "directional intent": move the top note down (settle), keep it the same (tension/glue), or up (excitement)
Be the horn section
Picture a blues or funk band with two guitarists. Guitar one holds the groove down low. Your job — guitar two — is to complement that by getting up on the higher string sets, the top three or four strings, and playing the kind of stabby punches a horn section (trumpet, sax, trombone) would play.
An A7 chord has four notes: A, C♯, E and G — the root, 3rd, 5th and ♭7. Rather than a big, muddy barre chord, learn a compact voicing for each of those notes on top.
Four voicings, one for each chord tone
Start with the root on top — an A9-type shape with no third, which keeps it open and funky. Because it's one shape, you can simply slide it up to make D9 and E9 and follow the I-IV-V changes.
Then there's a 3rd-on-top voicing (the C♯), which looks like an open D7 shape slid up; a 5th-on-top voicing (the E); and a ♭7-on-top voicing (the G) — that classic bluesy A7 grip, where you can also push the A up to B to turn it into an A9.
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Connect around the blues
The payoff comes when you learn those same four shapes for D7 and E7, because then you connect them through common tones. Say you're on A7 with the root on top — that A is also the 5th of D7, so move to your 5th-on-top D7 voicing and the two chords glue together. For the E7, drop back a half step: that G♯ is the 3rd of E7. Since the 3rd voicing has no root, anchor yourself by finding the root E on the B string (5th fret) and sliding back into the shape.
There's almost always something close by. On the last four bars, going from E7 to D7, you can often just shift a couple of fingers and you're there.
Directional intent
Once you have the shapes, be conscious of the highest note as you change chords, and decide where it goes. Moving the top note downward gives a settling, "ah, that feels good" resolution. Keeping the same note on top creates a bow-and-arrow tension that also glues chords together. Moving upward feels exciting, like rising. Choosing that direction on purpose is what makes this kind of comping interesting — especially when you're trading space with a busy piano player or a second guitarist.
