During ‘Lockdown’ I thought I’d post some quick and hopefully useful ‘Lockdown Lessons’ on my hitherto sporadic blog. The first of which is this Blues Turnaround in A.
Check out part 2 & 3 here:
So here’s the turnaround. You would use it most commonly for the last 2 bars of a 12 bar blues (bars 11 & 12).
Harmonically this turnaround functions as follows: I - I7 - IV - Idim - I - V7(#9) - I(13). Idim is by far the least understood of these functions - I’ll do another lesson on Idim7 soon as it’s so common to Blues & Jazz.
What makes this turnaround sound so good is that the bottom voices are descending whilst the top voices are ascending. The middle voice (when there is one) is the key centre - A and it remains static throughout which stabilises the voicings.
Here are chord diagrams of all the chords used in the turnaround - I’ve added a Root note to the A7 chord as an option. You can either play it or not - up to you.
I’m going to aim to do more of these lessons soon. So if you liked it, found it useful, think somebody you know might like it etc please give it a like and share it around.
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Thanks so much, James.