Tying it All Together

Essential blues turnarounds, part 1

- SUE FOLEY

AN ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL element in blues guitar is the turnaround. It is a basic function of blues music that the turnaround happens at the end of the progression and flips it over back to the beginning of the form. When playing a standard 12-bar blues, the turnaround occurs in the last two bars, 11 and 12, as the tonic chord (rooted in the key you're in) moves to the V (five chord), which then resolves back to the tonic in bar 1 of the next 12-bar chorus.

When playing a single-note blues solo, players sometimes forget about where the turnaround is and how important it is to make reference to it melodically. Playing these turnarounds as part of your solos will tie everything together and ensure that it sounds like a blues song.