BONUS TEACHING BLUES

 

Play Guitar Blues 01

Blues jam track: slow blues progression
Backing track instruments: electric rhythm guitar, bass and drums

Suggestions: Use the A Blues Scale. Below is the tab for the A blues scale starting at the 5th position. '5th position' simply means your index finger is at your 5th fret. We are starting on the Root note, the A, and playing 2 octaves of the blues scale as well as adding the flat third or b3 when we play the 8th fret on the high E or 1st string. This is the most common patter for the blues scale.

The A Blues Scale, 5th position.

E|------------------------------------------5--8--
B|-----------------------------------5--8---------
G|-------------------------5--7--8----------------
D|------------------5--7--------------------------
A|--------5--6--7---------------------------------
E|--5--8-------------------------------------------

You'll soon discover as I put up blues scales in more keys that we are using the same patterns just in different positions on the guitar neck. You really don't need to learn a lot of theory or scales to be able to play reasonably well. If you focus on learning the basic patterns you'll find you will be able to play along with a lot of music in a relatively short space of time.

Blues Licks for Slow Blues in A

Here are 4 simple blues licks that use only the notes from the A Blues Scale shown above. Try playing each lick over the entire progression. Notice that when you play the same notes over the different chords the licks sound very different. You can work out different rhythms to play for each lick and vary the notes used to make up your own blues licks.

That's what improvising is all about. Listening to others to get ideas, listening to the music you can sing in your head, emulating those ideas and sounds and then just playing around with them to come up with your own ideas. This is how you build your own sound. It's not a hard process to go through, you just need to spend time on it and be patient. Don't try and rush to get to the next level. Play, play more and play some more. Getting good will happen with practice. If you need to keep your hands on the neck getting good will take care of itself.

...nuff said, it's time to jam!