4 Types of Blues Turnarounds You Should Know

in this lesson we're going to talk about four main types of blues turnarounds that you really need to be familiar with [Music] let's get started by talking about the first blues turn around that we're going to cover today and this is super important that I think this should be the first turn out that you ever learned it's very useful you're gonna hear it in in like that classic blues sense like Sweet Home Chicago that kind of stuff so let's give it a listen and we'll talk about what makes this kind of a bigger archetype of Blues turnarounds [Music] okay so we're really starting here at this little piece Evan shape here comes from this d7 shape you move it up into E we've got an e7 we're really starting out with the open e this is in the key of E we're gonna roll through the top three strings with some triplets and then flatten this entire cord and so this is where we're starting to get that sense of chromaticism where we're just moving down a half step at a time okay another set of triplets do it again before resolving here and this is the top of an E chord right so we've got our G sharp B and our E so again we've got that descending line it resolves into E that's our key Center so that's a really good moment but we punch it up by beating into our five chord the b7 in this case and that's sort of a a real familiar structure to a blues turnaround we've got this falling chromatic piece here we resolve momentarily on the one chord in our case E and then we end with the five chord before starting back over that's the whole point of a turnaround is to kind of get you out of the end of a progression and loop you back in to the top of the progression cycle through with bar one of say a 12 bar blues so this one is super important and you don't have to stop there we can take this descending chromatic thing a little bit further maybe leave out some of that but keep the bones the same and you might come up with something like this [Music] so here how in that example we've still got kind of the same feel we left out some of it we gave it a little more space but knowing that first sort of archetype of a blues turnaround this chromatic descending line really helps us to kind of broaden our scope a little bit that gives us a nice anchor point but you can certainly get creative now we're going to move on to the second type of a blues turnaround and what we're gonna do here is definitely different let's keep this in for some consistency here but you're gonna hear a familiar sound but definitely different than this chromatic descent to the root [Music] okay here what we did was we definitely employed that use of chromatics where we're following down a half step at a time but notice that the route are E which is here the twelfth fret in this example stayed constant it didn't move whereas here we move down to the he would come fell into the e what we did here was we pedaled the E and pedaling is just a term for kind of keeping that root cycling back through and kind of alternating through the pitches here so what I'm doing is kind of pinching on the fourth string twelfth fret and the 1st string twelfth fret and the chromatic aspect is happening here on the fourth string definitely still has that classic Robert Johnson style vibe to it and this is definitely one that you should know and then we also use that five chord in the second bar of this here what we do is walk up into our B here on the ninth fret of the fourth string before putting down this b7 shape here all the way up we've got a b7 and it's coming in that same register or zone or position on the fret board before resolving to our eight again this is meant to kind of carry you back into the top of a progression this being of high serves as a really good intro or ending for a song and you're gonna hear that in a lot of Robert Johnson tunes and we've done this in ease so far but you can certainly move this around another popular place to play this is in a so if you grab here the fifth fret just move this whole thing down from 12 5 you can do that same pattern and again just a lot of pinching and keeping that root which is on top here singing bright throughout the turnaround [Music] and what you can do here to add a little bit of your own flavor just kind of play with the pedal tone you can certainly do that don't necessarily have to hit it as regimented as this the other thing that you can do and you'll hear this and some Robert Johnson stuff [Music] this is a really cool way to add just a little bit of creativity to this and once you get down to here do this a little pull-off this works great in a we pull off from three to two and then open on the first string on your way to that five chord E or E seven and then back into the top of the progression okay you could just jump right in with this shuffle here now this next style of turnaround is just a lick based turnaround you're gonna hear this in songs like pride and joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan and countless others especially when you get into electric blues but there's no reason you shouldn't know this and no reason you can't pull it off on the acoustic guitar here's an example of one one two three so there you go there's a lick that definitely carries you through those final two bars we're working in the key of either but notice that we did still feature the five chord at that in that little climb it's a great way to make a statement that you're at the end of the progression is hitting that five chord not necessary but definitely something really cool the final type of turnaround that we're going to cover here is just fascinating to me and it's got a little bit of counterpoint or cultural puntal movement it's a fun word to say right but what really that means is that we've got sort of two different lines happening and I think one of the best examples is this which I've got a lesson on called the sweetest turnaround ever I love this love this sound but listen when I play it if you've got an ace ending line and a descending line happening at the same time [Music] are did you notice how the second-string was going down while the base was climbing right so this was happening on the second string the higher note in this whereas the bass was doing this very cool when those start to sort of converge and move in opposite directions as you're working your way through this turn around I've got another one that definitely has a little more of a ragtime feel to it so you can go back to older ragtime blues and you're gonna hear this and it's got sort of that sort of counterpoint or that ascending and descending melodic content to it here's what this one looks like [Music] okay so this is a counterpoint kind of crossing converging lines type of turn around as well but it's got more of a ragtime feel you can definitely hear that flavor happening but what I'm doing is starting out in G so there's my first beat and then I'm on each of the next three beats I'm gonna do a chord so this is a g7 top four strings then I'm gonna descend on the bass and a sin on the second string to hit a c-major now do have this G on top it's gonna stay this that's like a senior with a G on the first string right then we flatten the bass and come up again on the second string to this seventh chord shape we've used this before in the lesson this is an E flat seven chord before finally coming to a G so this sort of gets us down to the D note here and we hit this big G before hitting our five more and can a staple of these turnarounds put in that five chord in the final measure before headed back to the top of the next it just begs to resolve to one which makes it a great setup for your one chord bar one of a typical progression if your premium member you're gonna have access to download the tab that accompanies this to give you the notes of each of these turnarounds I know we didn't dive deep into the exact picking and where you put your finger and all of that so definitely try to check out the tab but I really want you to focus on the types and sort of categorizing the turns in this way will help you recognize them and then know the sound the characteristics of each of these types and that will help you decode things as you listen to your favorite tunes and trying to get them down into your own playing at least it helped me so I wanted to share this with you there are probably other types of turnarounds and if you hear one I'd love you to drop a comment below and let me know what tune it came from I'll go listen to it I'm constantly trying to collect some cool turnarounds so I'd appreciate it if you do that if you dig this video consider hitting the subscribe button give me a thumbs up I'll be back here next Tuesday for another acoustic blues lesson until then practice smart and play on

Channel: Blues Guitar Institute

Views: 581,952

Rating: 4.9148784 out of 5

Keywords: bluesguitarinstitute, blues, guitar, lesson, acoustic, finger, picking, blues turnarounds, blues guitar lesson, acoustic blues, turnaround, blues turnaround lesson, fingerstyle blues, finger style blues guitar, fingerpicking blues, ragtime blues, #tuesdayblues, tuesday blues, john hatcher, john hatcher bgi

Id: n0iPt7P67u0

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/theSashaScarr]

This is pretty dope. Upvote

[u/CalmasOTeCalmo]

Excellent lesson bro

Keep em coming

Good teacher.

[u/JMo5187]

Great lesson- thank you!

[u/ukzario]

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