Watch the For the Bird online guitar lesson by Chris Buono from Guitar Lab: Blues Progressions

Continuing with the jazz vibe we have a super-charged blues progression courtesy of Charlie Parker. This set of changes is from a tune of his called Blues For Alice. From the series of chromatic ii-Vs starting in bar 6 to the brisk 164 BPM you're getting into some s#%t with this one! An underlying concept called back cycling is lurking within the changes. In the upcoming Back Cycling segment you'll get full picture as to what that is, but in the meantime think of it this way: A series of V chord cadences that eventually lead up to a final resolution.

While these last three progressions were played in more of a jazz context that's not to say they can't be played in another style. Try dropping these, as well as all the other progressions throughout the course, in various styles. If you feel like an entire progression isn't making the adjustment all that well try taking pieces of it and combining it with others. Take the first fours bars of one, the middle of another and the final four of yet another and see what you get. In the end you're making your collection of blues progressions that much more robust.

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