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Play It Loud

blues guitar lesson, blues guitar, blues scale

This is an old, tired, and severely beat up subject: blues guitar…….

It’s the guitar style that spawned jazz, rock, country, Kesha, blah blah blah.

You get it. You’re not here to hear a history about it I’m sure.

What I have for you is 3 videos and a short article that’ll give you a solid intro to this guitar style.

Master these three concepts, and you’ll have most of the genre down and you can start making your own sick blues riffs and solos.

Let’s dive in……

How To Use The Blues Guitar Scale – Lesson 1

More than likely, you’re already very familiar with the pentatonic scale, or at least I hope you are…..

The blues scale is nothing but that scale plus one more note added to it.

Watch the video and I’ll show you all the places that you add this note.

Now I may have been a little confusing in the video about this location, but it’s essentially found in this spot everytime.

You take a minor pentatonic scale, go to the fourth note in that scale (like B in the E Minor Pentatonic), and then play the note just a half step below it (which will be Bb or A#).

If you don’t know your fretboard, or what sharps and flats are then you’re in deep shit.

Take the time to learn that, alright? You’re making this harder on yourself by not doing that…..

 

Creating A Solo Over Dominant 7th Chords – Lesson 2

Watch what I say carefully in here…….

A 7th chord is nothing but a major chord with a minor 7th interval added to it.

For instance, take E major = E – G# – B.

Add the note just a whole step below E, which is D.

And then you’ve got E7 = E – G# – B – D

Now normally I’d put up a picture of all the chord shapes, but you can find them all by doing a google search for “7th guitar chords” or something similar.

Click the images tab in the google search and you’ll see plenty of stuff.

However, knowing the shapes isn’t the hard part. It’s remembering this information while you’re soloing and hitting the notes in time that makes this part of blues guitar difficult.

So please watch the video as I’ll show you plenty of tricks to do that.

 

Creating Blues Melodies – Lesson 3

And here’s the last part of blues guitar…….

Anybody can play fast with a metronome and an arsenal of licks and patterns to light up the fretboard with.

But creating a melody is a much more subtle and difficult artform, despite the lack of technical difficulty to play them.

Melody requires that you choose your notes and create a phrase around them with proper attention.

And each genre and chord progression you come across will come with different needs.

That’s why you shouldn’t rely on a single trick or lick to be able to help you in every situation.

The best guitar players can adapt to anything they play, and create a melody on the fly because they understand the fundamentals of making music.

And Here’s My Lesson All About Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Guitar Style

Hopefully this will be a great ending to this series of blues guitar lessons!

I’ve gotta admit that I’ve spent a lot more time studying Stevie Ray Vaughan than many others like Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, or Albert King (SRV’s favorite).

And this is mostly because I didn’t seek out their tabs as much or listen to their music as often.

So if you’re here and disappointed because you see yet another lesson on Stevie, I apologize.

Maybe you’ll get something new from all of this that you can use when playing songs like Spoonful, Mannish Boy, or Sweet Home Chicago.

Well I’ll quit yapping now. Enjoy the lesson!