Jam Session 104i, 12-Bar Blues in A (Piano, Guitar)

Here are some show/lesson/jam session notes for Jam Session 104i:

We're playing the 12-bar blues in A, a simplified version of it, so that we're playing -

• Four bars of A
• Two bars of D
• Two bars of A
• One bar of E
• One bar of D
• Two bars of A
• Start over again!

I like to have a blues-swing mentality, 12/8 while playing the 12-bar blues:  "One and a two and a three and a four and a..." but a straight 4/4 count:  "One two three four..." or "One and two and three and four and..." could work just fine.

At one point in the jam session, the piano player does some embellishments on his right hand so that the major chords turn into 7th chords:

 

 

The guitar player solos/improvises in A blues, which is a minor scale, but it works over the major chords in the 12-bar blues in A.  Maybe we're culturally wired to appreciate the bluesy dissonance caused by clashing major and minor thirds (C# and C, respectively) in A.

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