Five Essential Items while Learning the Blues
Without a doubt blues is the most popular sub style of guitar playing. To become a master at the entire instrument can take years to accomplish, but one of the greatest things about the blues is you can get started with some simple tips and techniques. Today I have five essential topics you have to cover while learning, and if you choose to follow them you'll be propelled ahead of the pack when taking blues guitar lessons.
The Twelve Bar Blues
If there is one essential ingredient in everything blues, it's the 12 bar blues pattern. There is a bit of musical theory behind the concept once you under it you'll be able to quickly start playing it right away.
The 12 bar blues are a simple pattern that uses the I, IV and V chords from a given key. If one, four, five is new to you then you may want to familiarize yourself with it first, how ever it's not all that tough to understand.
The pattern of the 12 Bar blues is then 12 bars consisting of 4 beats each. Here's the pattern:
1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4 - 4 - 1 - 1 - 5 - 4 - 1 - 5
The 1 stands for the I chord, the 4 for the IV chord and the 5 for the V chord.
Know your 7th Chords
Seventh chords are a variation of a major chord that sound great when playing a 12 bar blues progression. For example if you were playing A, D and E then change those out to be the A seventh, D seventh and E seventh chords. Generally speaking these chords are note tough to play and can be found at several places on the neck as both open and barre chords.
Get to Know the Pentatonic Blues Scales
You've likely heard of the pentatonic scales, they're the most popular rock and roll scale used for lead guitar. The only difference between a regular pentatonic scale and the blues scale is a 6th note added in known as the blue note. These scales can be played in a variety of locations around the neck, knowing where the root note is will allow you to play in just about any key and start to create some of your own licks and riffs.
Keep it Simple
Beginners have a tendency to want to over complicate things when it comes to scales, progressions and the like. Blues is meant to flow not be technical and often times the simplest lick will sound fantastic. It's important that you get proper instruction when learning the blues and I'd suggest either one of the many blues guitar courses or taking private lessons from someone who's background is the blues.
Use Backing Tracks
If you're not familiar with backing tracks you should be because they make practicing a heck of a lot more fun. If you're not familiar a backing/jam track is basically a full band recorded playing a song or progression but without the guitar. You play these tracks on your MP3 player or stereo and then jam along with them as the guitar tracks. These are extremely useful when you reach the point of learning blues guitar licks and lead techniques.
The majority of online guitar lesson memberships offer jam tracks in their practice tools, also most DVD lessons include a CD or two of backing tracks to practice with as well.
About the Author
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