The blues is one of the most popular sub genres of the guitar. 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

The 12 bar blues are the corner stone of almost every blues song. While there is a little theory behind the 12 bar blues it won’t take too much to understand it.

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

In the example above the 1 is for the one chord, the 4 the four chord and the 5 the five chord.

Know your 7th Chords

Seventh chords are a variation of a major chord that sound great when playing a 12 bar blues progression. If you’re regular progression was let’s say A, D and E you can “blues” that up by playing A7th, D7th and E7th. There are a few different places on the neck you can play a 7th chord including open as well as barre chords.

Understand the 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. Like a regular pentatonic scale you can play these in several positions around the neck in a different key so knowing where the root note is an important part of learning to play lead to a particular 12 bar blues progression.

Keep it Simple

Beginners have a tendency to want to over complicate things when it comes to scales, progressions and the like. Generally speaking some of the sweetest sounding blues licks are also the easiest to play. It’s important that you get proper instruction when learning the blues and I’d suggest either a blues guitar course or taking private lessons from someone who’s background is the blues.

Practice with Jam Tracks

If you’re not familiar with backing tracks you should be because they make practicing a heck of a lot more fun. A backing track is basically a song without a guitar track recorded. You play these tracks on your MP3 player or stereo and then jam along with them as the guitar tracks. This is similar to playing along with other musicians but far easier to organize.

Many online guitar lesson courses have a series of jam tracks included in their membership area also most DVD blues courses come with some pre-recorded backing tracks as well.

 

 

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