You’re 11 bars into a 12-bar blues, the groove is solid, and then what? Without a proper turnaround, the whole thing just sort of… stops. A turnaround brings you back to the start of the progression, and it’s one of the most useful licks you can learn for blues guitar.

What a Turnaround Does

Think of it like driving down the road and realizing you’re headed the wrong way. You need to turn around and get back where you started. Same idea in music — you’ve been through your 12-bar progression, told your musical story, and now you need something to bring it back to the beginning.

Turnarounds show up in almost every blues tune. Whether you’ve noticed them or not, they’ve been there — that little phrase at the end that loops everything back around.

The Chromatic Pass Note

This is the turnaround lick you’ll hear more than any other. In the key of A, your 1, 4, and 5 chords are A, D, and E. Play through a standard 12-bar: four bars of A, two bars of D, two bars of A, one bar of E, one bar of D, one bar of A — and that last bar is where the turnaround goes.

The lick uses the chromatic pass note between the 4th and 5th notes of the scale. In A, that’s D (the 4th), the chromatic note one fret above, and E (the 5th). People call that middle note all kinds of things — the devil’s note, the flatted fifth, the blues note. It’s just a chromatic passing note.

What makes it work? Playing from the 4 through that chromatic note to the 5 creates tension. Your ear wants to resolve back to the root. As soon as you hit that A chord again, everything feels complete and the cycle starts over.

Moving It to Different Keys

The best part about this turnaround lick is it works the same way in every key. In A, you’ve got D → chromatic pass → E. Move to the key of G, and it’s C → chromatic pass → D. Same fingering, same relationships, different frets.

ZZ Top’s “Tush” is a great example of this in action. They play it with full chords in the key of G, but it’s the exact same theory — the chromatic pass note between 4 and 5. Once you start listening for it, you’ll catch it everywhere.

Chuck Berry’s Shortcut

Not everybody plays the traditional chromatic run, though. Chuck Berry had his own approach — he’d skip the chromatic notes entirely and just stress the 5 chord hard. In those last four bars, he’d lean into the E (or whatever the 5 was) and then drop right back to the root. Simple, effective, and it still pushes your ear back to the beginning.

This works in country music too. Stress the 5 chord, land on the 1, and your ear fills in the rest. Not as fancy as the chromatic pass note, but it gets the job done.

Give It a Try

Start in the key of A. Play through a basic 12-bar and when you hit that last bar, drop in the chromatic pass note between D and E, then land on A. Get that under your fingers and you’ve got the foundation for most blues turnarounds you’ll ever need.

For more turnaround variations — including the raised seventh and descending scale run — check out our popular blues turnarounds lesson. And for a step-by-step breakdown in the key of G, try the 12-bar blues turnaround lesson.

For more blues rhythm patterns and techniques, visit our blues rhythm guitar lessons.