Every blues player hits that moment — you’re cruising through a 12-bar, the groove is locked in, and then bar 12 comes along. What do you play to bring it all back around? Turnarounds are one of the most important sounds in blues guitar, and once you’ve got a few under your fingers, your playing takes a real jump forward.

In this lesson, I’ll walk you through three of the most popular turnarounds. They’re all movable to any key, and they all serve the same purpose — bringing you back to the top of the progression.

What a Turnaround Actually Does

A turnaround is a musical cue. It tells the other players, the audience, and your own ears: we’re done with that round, time to start again. In a 12-bar blues, you’ve got this cycle that keeps repeating, and the turnaround brings you back to the beginning. Think of it like closing one chapter and opening the next.

Most blues tunes work off some kind of 12-bar form — sometimes 16 or 24, but 12 is the most common. You get to the end and you need something to push you back to the start. That’s your turnaround.

The Chromatic Pass Note Between 4 and 5

This is the one you’ve heard a thousand times. Say you’re in the key of G — your 1, 4, and 5 chords are G, C, and D. In a standard 12-bar, you’d play four bars of G, two bars of C, two bars of G, one bar of D, one bar of C, one bar of G, and that leaves one more bar for the turnaround.

The chromatic pass note sits between the 4th and 5th notes of your scale. Some folks call it the devil’s note — and there’s real history behind that name. Goes back to the church days when they tried to control what musicians could play. They said that interval was evil. All it really is? A passing note that pushes you from the 4 up to the 5.

When you land on that 5, your ear wants resolution. It wants to go home to the root. And that’s the whole trick behind this turnaround.

You don’t have to play it as single notes, either. Try power chords. Major thirds sound great too. Those three notes — the 4, the chromatic pass, and the 5 — work no matter how you voice them.

The Raised Seventh

Classical musicians call this the raised seventh or harmonic minor, and they’ve got rules about how to use it. In blues, we don’t worry much about those rules.

The best example I can think of? BB King’s “The Thrill is Gone.” It’s in B minor, and at the end of the progression, he plays A major (the 7th), then A# major (the raised 7th), and lands on B minor. That semitone distance between the raised 7th and the root is what makes it feel so final.

Play it as a single note, a full chord, or in intervals — that semitone movement to your tonic always closes things off. The classical folks raised the seventh note of their minor scale for the same reason: to make it resolve. In blues, we just do it our own way.

The Descending Scale Run

This third turnaround flips things around. Instead of building up, you come down through a descending major scale run in the last four bars. Start on the root, walk down through the 5th, flat 5th, and 4th, then use the chromatic pass note to bring it back up. It’s got a smooth, walking-down feel to it.

This one works especially well when you want a longer, more dramatic turnaround. It fills out those last few bars and sounds great on its own or combined with the other approaches.

Mix and Match

All three turnarounds are fully transposable — whatever key you’re in, the note relationships stay the same. Start with the chromatic pass note between 4 and 5. It’s the most common and the easiest to get comfortable with. Then try the raised seventh for something more dramatic. The descending run rounds things out when you need more space.

Once you’ve got all three, you can pick and choose depending on the feel of the song. That’s the beauty of turnarounds — they’re functional, but there’s plenty of room to make them your own.

If you want a closer look at the chromatic pass note in different keys, check out our lesson on blues turnaround licks. And when you’re ready to end the song instead of looping it, see our 12-bar blues ending lesson for the classic semitone slide.

For more blues rhythm techniques and patterns, head over to our blues rhythm guitar lessons.