I’ve been playing bass off and on for almost 5 years now and I can’t say I’m especially good or anything. Either way I feel like I have at least a basic grasp of the 12 bar blues to give any people learning to play with music a fun little lesson. 

First, a little background, the 12 Bar Blues is a progression that you can play with just about any group of musicians and they’ll know what it is. It makes it easy to have a progression or pattern when jamming with people so that everyone can quickly be on the same page about what to play. 

Now for the meat of it, the super basic structure of the 12 Bar Blues is this:

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmd7Y2rB2BC5kLBdCGg12o51nTg9DYzpsEgV6PCpvS4myh/image.png)</center>
 
You might be wondering, “What the hell is that?” 

Let’s see if I can explain in my very home taught way of explaining. If you are a musician what I’m about to say might cause you some pain so you might not want to read further. I’m warning you now, I have no formal music training. Alright then, let’s get to it. 

Deconstructing the pattern above, there are 3 sets of 4 bars, hence 12 bar blues. The 1,4,5 refers to the notes in a cord such as a major cord. There are 8 to make an octave. So a G major cord would have G(1), A(2), B(3), C(4), D(5), E(6), F(7), and then again as the octave, G(8). So the 1,4,5 stands for the first, fourth, and fifth notes in a cord (for G major that's G, C, D). 

On the bass at least, that makes a pattern like this:

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmchrW44rHDJTjHqne4ErdHfYRbejidAeD3A4z9YdRE2Nu/image.png)</center>

Anywhere you move this pattern it works. It works as A:

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQme1MfAo5yChxgpCgTu7ZvPJTfF1R5AHHbMAViRAKjFcbU/image.png)</center>
 
It works as B:

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNNWHWjJQ5t75AG1ZJDb4i15riCkwBNDTrWqyGmdCSexR/image.png)</center>
 
It works as F:

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRk29Twwoj1Z2i7HMhXq25Ks4kYSLEYzbYUxDj9SpzHox/image.png)</center>
 
Do you see how the same pattern works everywhere? Now that you have that down you can begin to make up little patterns, based off these 3 notes. Place this pattern into the 12 Bar Blues progression and you have a song! 

Here’s a really really simple sample in the key of G:

https://youtu.be/X90KtYYd1KE

In this video I played this:

|| GGGG | GGGG | GGGG | GGGG |
|CCCC | CCCC | GGGG | GGGG |
|DDDD | CCCC | GGGG| GGGG ||

Here’s another version with a more fun pattern:

https://youtu.be/LzeVFZjzCW8 

In this video I played this:

|| GBDE | FEDB | GBDE | FEDB |
| CEGAb |AAbGE | GBDE | FEDB |
| DF#AF# | CEGE | GBDE | FEDB ||

To explain this a little more thoroughly, the GBDE\FEDB pattern is in the key of G and fits over bars 1&2, 3&4, 7&8, & 11&12. Do you see how you can fit a repeating pattern into the 12 bar blues progression? The same pattern is used in the key of C to play bars 5&6, and then a modified or shortened version of that same pattern is played in the key of D and C for bars 9 and 10. 
I hope you aren’t thoroughly confused. I’ve never tried to teach this before but have watched enough videos to know what doesn’t work for me.  Maybe this will help you understand a bit more than some of the others I’ve seen. 

As I mentioned earlier you can move this pattern anywhere you want. I just chose to stick with G because it was simple. But if you go up to jam with some folks and they say, “Let’s do the 12 Bar Blues in A,” you’ll have some idea of what to do. You know where 1 is (extrapolate 4 and 5) and you know the 12 Bar Blues pattern. All you’ve got to do now is use that creativity of yours to pull out your own little pattern within the confines you’ve been given. 

Hope that helps! As always I love to hear what you think. 
 
<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWQwETmBai35m9BRceN9mcTb8YBRW7kMqTZotu6XjUBm6/image.png)</center>