The Art of the Rock Shuffle - Guitarist's Guide

A quick look at the basic 12 bar blues song structure and basic chord changes including the 3 most common variations (all included as downloadable PDFs). The typical AAB lyrical form is also described.

In this lesson we learn the basic chord shapes: A5, D5 & E5. Then add the 6th to create the "happy" shuffle sound and then the 7th to add some "swagger."

An easy to understand and execute approach to mastering the essential "straight" or rock shuffle rhythm. Two downloadable TABS are included!

Right hand muting, adding upstroke "hic ups" and stop time "drama." These techniques will help you personalize the way your shuffle sounds!

The "turnaround" gets us from the end of one chorus of the blues to the top of the next. In this lesson I'll teach you two super easy turnarounds and a third, not much harder, but really cool sounding one. I also show you how we can use everything we've learned so far to play in two additional keys using a capo.

"Hi-Heel Sneakers" is a great tune, easy to learn and representative of the straight shuffle sound. This tune was a hit for Tommy Tucker in 1963 and has been covered by a veritable who's who of recording artists including Elvis, the Beatles & the Rolling Stones. One of my favorite covers is by Buddy Guy & Junior Wells.

You can listen here to the Tommy Tucker recording by searching for it on YouTube. You can listen to Buddy Guy & Junior Wells' version there as well. You can learn more about the tune in the Wikipedia article.

There are hundreds of tunes you could paly or adapt to everthing you've learned so far. Here are a few to start with:

• "Red House" by Jimi Hendrix
• Just About Anything by Chuck Berry
• "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" by the Georgia Satelites

The intro to our first tune, Hi-Heel Sneakers is a classic and easy to learn. I teach it in two different positions in this bonus lesson.

Chuck Berry used the 12 bar straight /rock shuffle rhythm almost exclusively to great affect. In Johnny B. Goode he abandons the usual blues AAB strophic lyrical form and applies a Verse Choru Form over the 12 bar blues structure in the jazzy key of Bb. You can achieve this by capoing at the 1st fret.

If you'd like to learn the intro to this tune, Justin Sandercoe has an excellent lesson on YouTube that I recommend. To play it in A, just drop his fingerings by one fret.