Intros And Outros For Blues And Ragtime Guitar

E is a well used and standard key for blues playing and there are numerous tags you can try. Some of these I've written to resolve back to the root key E which can be used as riffs or outros for your blues inventions. In some examples I've added an alternative which resolves to the V chord - B of the three chord trick. You can mix these around as you wish. Try substituting one phrase for another or add to them. As you'll see, there can be many variations you can make, also each one can be adapted to suit different blues or ragtime styles.

The key of G can throw up some interesting tags which can include blues, ragtime and country blues. Many of them can be transposed to different keys as there is less use of open strings.

The key of A can offer up a whole variety of tags. With it's central position on the fretboard it is a firm favourite among blues players, as single note improvisation can move up and down the board easily. In the open position the key of A can create an interesting assortment of both blues and rag tags.

The key of C is very popular for ragtime/blues and can produce a variety of tags that suit the open C chord position. Tags can be extended across the fretboard in various positions and easily transposed into different keys. This is one of my favourite keys for creating tags and it is fairly easy to produce many different variations.