Minor Blues

The blues can also be minor in tonality!  The classic example of this is “The Thrill Is Gone” by B.B. King.   It’s such a cool and powerful sound and I urge you to not only try and play these, but spend some time listening to minor blues as well.  Not to mention, they’re so much fun to solo over :)

As you likely surmised, the minor blues has a minor I chord.  This is usually a minor 7 chord, but not always.  The IV chord is also usually a Minor 7 chord, but there are some tunes with a IV7 and we still refer to the progression as Minor.  

But most notably besides the Imi7, the most distinct aspect of the minor blues is the V7 chord.  Almost always the V is dominant in a minor blues.  

This really makes for a strong push back to the tonal center and just demands resolution.  For those of you more advanced players, this creates a tonal environment called “harmonic minor” which means you have a minor scale but with a major 7, or leading tone. 

One more thing:  It’s very common in a minor blues for the V7 chord to be immediately preceded by VI major.  This creates a very cool root movement and serves to even further drive the V7 home. 

For reference, I have attached the 5 shapes of the minor 7 chord and dom 7 chord.  If you need a refresher, check out the Minor 7th Lesson and Dominant 7th Lesson in Level 4.