Chords for Using the A7 Chord for Blues | Tuesday Blues Lessons #001

_ [F] _ Hey blues [F#] fans John here with the [A] Blues Guitar Institute, and I'm very excited to make an announcement today
Blues Guitar [F#] Institute has been pumping out free lessons
But on a very [A] inconsistent basis
so what I want to do is really amp things up a bit [E]
and we're going to [C#] release [Am] a
Brand new Blues Guitar [A] lesson every [F#] single Tuesday [A] on the YouTube channel
[E] And then we're going to post [A] it back on blues guitar Institute calm [F#] as well for you
So I hope [A] you join me along with this ride because we're going to cover some cool things like
[F#] You know some music theory that relates to good blues guitar of course
[A] We're going to throw in some licks, and we're going to take a look at some guitar techniques as well
[E]
And again you can expect [G] this [F#] every single Tuesday, so I want you to keep track of what's going on and
[A] Please let me [E] know if you dig what we're doing [A] here, so jump over on the Facebook [F#] page and leave me a comment
I'd love to hear from you [A] and love to hear
You know your idea of a lesson something that maybe you're struggling [F#] with so we're going to do this every single week
And it's going to be highly interactive
[A] So please let me know what you want to hear because that's what it's all about is [E] getting you to be [G] more [F#] confident
Well rounded blues [A] guitar player [F#] so with that let's get [A] into lesson one
[E] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ [A]
Okay, lesson one in this new series is going to be all about that a7 [Am]
chord
7th [F#] chords are ultra bluesy, and they're [A] just something that you really have to get used to especially if you're like me
You started playing with [E] you know hard rock classic [G] rock [F#] and heavy metal type stuff
You don't really hear [A] a lot of 7th chords in that style of music [E] or at least I do
[A] But it is so prevalent in [F#] country music, and it is very prevalent [A] in the blues
So let's take a look at what makes a 7th chord a [Am] 7th chord
I'll show you a cool trick with an [F] a7 so we're going to take a look at what makes a 7th chord a 7th chord
now in major chord construction this is going to be our
Reference for this is just a regular [A] a major and we'll stick in this bar chord territory for right now
But this thing is full [F#] of first degree third degree fifth degree
_ _ [G#]
notes from the a major [A] scale
_ _ [F#] _ [A] _ _
_ so
That's what makes it a major chord the one three [Am] and five [E] to make this a seventh chord
We need ones threes fives
And we also need a flat seven and we can find the flat seven by [A] running through the scale
[C#] _ [D] _
[E] _ [F#] [Em] That's _ going to be our flat seven so that's the G [A] and all I did was count up one two three four [D#m] five six
We would [G#] come here for the seven, but we need [G] to flatten it
So we're back here on this G note so this note needs to show up [A] in our seventh chord _ and
The best way to do that the easiest way to do that is to pick your pinky up when you're doing this
Full bar chord shape _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and you can hear how nice and [G#] bluesy that sounds this sounds really happy and complete like like home [A] base really
The major and then when you pick that pinky up
You _ can hear there's a little something interesting happening there, _ _ _ [C#] so that's it
That's how to make one of these bar [A] chord shapes from a major to a seventh
chord _ and
[N] You're going to use that a ton in the blues
But let me show you one trick that I love to use on my a7 and it's going to make use of [F] the open a string
So this works out great when you're doing some finger style stuff
So we've got the open a string which is [A] the fifth string
[B] Then I'm going to put my first finger fifth fret [G] fourth string
My third finger my [D#] ring finger is sixth fret third string
And then my second [Dm] finger middle finger here is sneaking [E] in on the second string
fifth [A] fret _ and I'm playing the middle four strings
And _ [C#] this thing just [G#] screams the blues to me [A] check it out
_ _ _ _ [D#m] _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ [D#m] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ [A] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ Now us [G#m] guitarists like to look at things as shapes
I don't usually like to [Fm] do that, but this thing just looks so much like [D] a regular D chord
_ _ _ [A] but on the
[A#] _ _
Middle four strings [A] and up to this fifth fret position
So [E] if you need to think about it in terms of [A] shapes
Think of it as a D chord shape right here in the middle of the fretboard _ _
And just playing around there all I'm doing is just kind of pumping this A thing
_ And then picking up
with the the other three notes in the chord
_ _ Simultaneously it's just different spots.
I'm just going with it.
This is just really free [C] form
[A] _ Having a good time here _ _ _ _
_ _ And the only other thing that I'm doing here is another ultra bluesy thing and that is I'm going down and catching this whole thing
a half step lower
Just [C] _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ moving the whole chord
For _ _ [D#m] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [N] very Delta bluesy thing to do so I [A] hope you get some use from that
So there you go something [F#] cool to do with your A7
[A] Very bluesy chord, and I hope you like that little chord the mini [F#] version of the A7
I use it all the time, and I think it really gets you [A] into a more free sort of position of playing that chord
[G#] So hope you dig it put it [G] into your [F#] practice
Pump it into some [A] just playing around just [F#] like I was doing [A] and I think you're going to [E] really really [A] find the blues in that
_ _ [F#] _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [G#] _ [A] _
_ _ [G#] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [F#] _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ [F#] _ _ [A] _
_ [Bm] _ [E] _ [A] _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [G#] _ [A] _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ [A#] _ _ _ [A] _ _ [A] _
_ _ [G#] You
_ _ [G] _ _