Many people the world over decide to pick up the guitar and start playing because they are inspired by their favorite blues artists. Learning blues guitar is a fun and rewarding experience and in reality is not much different than learning how to play many other styles. In fact playing blues guitar is a great lead into other rock and jazz styles and many would argue that these later styles were influenced heavily by the blues. Below we will discuss the three components that make up the blues style.
Learn Blues Guitar Part 1 - The Feel
Mastering the feel of the blues is very important if you truly wish to become an expert blues player. In a normal 4/4 time signature eight notes break up the measure into eight equal parts.
For example: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
In the blues you will commonly hear of the music having a swing feel. The swing feel is created by dividing each beat into three pieces like so:
1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a
By dividing each beat into three equal parts we are creating what is referred to as eighth note triplets.
Listen to your favorite blues recordings and see if you can identify how many of them are using the swing feel.
Learn Blues Guitar Part 2 - Chord Progressions
Aside form the feel the blues chord progression is another dead ringer of the style that can't be missed. Almost all of the greatest blues songs every created follow the same I, IV, V chord progression and they also tend to follow a 12-bar pattern that repeats throughout the duration of the song.
The I, IV, V chord progression is most commonly played using all dominant 7th chords. For example if we were playing in the key of E the the I, IV, V would be E7, A7, and B7.
So it can be said that a big part of learning blues guitar is learning to play dominant 7th chords. So what is a dominant 7th chord you ask? It is basically a major chord with a flatted seventh added to it.
For example, if you have an A7 chord, you know that the chord starts on an A. Dominant 7th chords use the root, third, fifth, and flatted seventh of the major scale. An A major scale has the notes A B C# D E F# G#. So the notes in an A7 chord are:
root=A
third=C#
fifth=E
flatted seventh=G
You can use this same formula to find any dominant 7th chord or just get yourself a chord chart.
Learn Blues Guitar Part 3 - The Blues Scale
The final characteristic that distinguishes the blues from any other form of music is the use of the blues scale. For those of you who do not know this scale it is basically a minor pentatonic scale with a flatted fifth scale degree added into the mix. The blues scale is built from the root, flatted third, fourth, flatted fifth, fifth, and flatted seventh degree of the major scale.
Again let's take the A major scale (A B C# D E F# G#) and add the note qualities of the blues scale.
root=A
flatted 3rd=C
4th=D
flatted 5th=E-flat
5th=E
flatted 7th=G
So the notes in an a blues scale are A C D E-flat E G. You might remember that the notes in an A7 chord were A C# E G. Notice that the blues scale has a minor 3rd in it and the Dominant 7th chord has a major third. This relationship plays a significant role in the way blues music sounds to the listener. The other big factor is the flatted 5th in the blues scale. In fact this note is often referred to as the blue note because of its unique sad quality.
BB King once said "The blues is the easiest music to learn, and the hardest to master." There is definitely truth in that statement. The ideas above are the fundamentals to playing the blues and they are not very hard to understand. But learning blues guitar is not just about playing the notes and making them sound good. It's about tapping into your inner thoughts and feelings and just letting them spill out onto the guitar.
John Robert has been playing guitar for longer than he can remember. Aside from teaching guitar for the last three years he enjoys writing articles about playing the blues and other guitar related topics. If you are serious about mastering the blues you owe it to yourself to check out PlayingThroughTheBlues.info
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