Eight bar blues encyclopedia topics

An eight bar blues is a typical blues chord progression, taking eight 4/4 bars to the verse. "Heartbreak Hotel", "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", "Ain't Nobody's Business" and "Cherry Red" are all eight-bar blues standards. One variant using this progression is to couple one eight-bar blues melody with a different eight-bar blues bridge to create a blues variant of the standard 32-bar song. "Walking By Myself", "I Want a Little Girl" and "(Romancing) In The Dark" are examples of this form. See also blues ballad. Eight bar blues progressions have more variations than the more rigidly defined twelve bar format. The move to the IV chord usually happens at bar 3 (as opposed to 5 in twelve bar.)

"Worried Life Blues" (probably the most common eight bar blues progression):

I	I	IV	IV
I	V	I IV	I V

"Key to the Highway" (variation with the V at bar 2):

I	V	IV	IV
I	V	I	V

"Walking By Myself" (somewhat unorthodox example of the form):

I	I	I	I
IV	V	I	V

(The same chord progression can also be called a sixteen bar blues, if each symbol above is taken to be a half note in 2/2 or 4/4 time -- blues has not traditionally been associated with notation, so its form becomes a bit slippery when written down.) Ray Charles's original instrumental "Sweet Sixteen Bars" is an example.

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Last updated on Tuesday September 16, 2008 at 22:07:54 PDT (GMT -0700)
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