Sixteen bar blues

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The sixteen bar blues can be a variation on an eight bar blues or the more standard twelve bar blues.

Any standard eight bar pattern can be viewed as a sixteen bar pattern played at twice the speed with the measures repeated.

More commonly, a sixteen bar blues is an extension of a twelve bar progression. In order to form a sixteen bar blues progression, the 9th and 10 chords are repeated:

twelve bar progression T T T T S S T T D S T T Play in C (help·info)

sixteen bar progression T T T T S S T T D S D S D S T T Play in C (help·info)

Note (one chord per measure)

• T – tonic chord,
• S – subdominant chord
• D for the dominant chord,

A famous example of this blues progression is "Watermelon Man" by Herbie Hancock. "Let's Dance," written and made famous by Chris Montez and made famous by the Ramones, employs a variation in which the dominant-subdominant transition is repeated only once, with two additional bars of the tonic substituted for the second repetition (for an overall progression of I-I-I-I / IV-IV-I-I / V-IV-V-IV / I-I-I-I).

[edit] See also

• Eight bar blues
• Thirty-two-bar form
• Blues ballad
• Talking blues
• 50s progression another popular chord progression in Western popular music.

v • d • e Chord progressions
ii-V-I turnaround	50s progression	Andalusian cadence	Backdoor progression	Borrowed progression	Circle progression	Coltrane changes	Double tonic	Eight-bar blues
Harmonic cadence	Omnibus progression	Passamezzo moderno	Ragtime progression	Rhythm changes	Sixteen-bar blues	Stomp progression	Twelve-bar blues