Blues Harp Chart and Cheat Sheet

Lesson Length: 6:14

Instructor: George Goodman

The Blues Harp Cheat Sheet is going to get you playing the correct key harmonica for Blues
and show you which notes fit the Blues progression.

Harmonica Cheat Sheets pdf

Hohner Special 20 in C
In this lesson, as in most of the lessons, I am playing a Hohner Special 20 in the key of C.

Blues Progression

To make the most sense here let's start by looking at the Blues progression.
Here we see the 12 bar blues in the key of G written in music notation.
Vertical bar lines on the staff clearly show 12 different measures or bars.

The first 4 bars are all covered by G7. This is the root chord or I chord.
Blues chords tend to be dominant 7th chords so this is the I7 chord.

C7 is played during bars 5 and 6.
If G7 is I7, then going up to C (G A B C),
we see that C7 is the IV 7.
It is a dominant 7th chord built on the fourth note of our key.

For bars 7 and 8 it's back to the I7 chord.

For bar 9, D7 is played.
This is the V7 chord; the dominant 7th chord built on the fifth note of our key.
If G7 is I7, then going up to the fifth note is D (G, A, B, C, D) and therefore D7 is the V7 chord for Blues in G

Then IV7 in bar 10

Then I7 again in bar 11

and V7 in the twelfth bar.

Wrap Up

The 12 Bar Blues progression dictates which chords occur in certain measures.
The basic Blues progression uses dominant 7th chords built on the root, fourth note of the key and the fifth note of the key - I7, IV7, V7.
There can be some variation in the progression but the simplest form of the progression uses the following form:
Bars 1 - 4 = I7
Bars 5 and 6 = IV7
Bars 7 and 8 = I7
Bar 9 = V7
Bar 10 = IV7
Bar 11 = I7
Bar 12 = V7

Let me know if you have any questions so I can get you sorted out.