A Blues Guitar Primer - Getting Started
Learning how to play blues guitar is really not that much different from learning how to play any other type of guitar. The main thing about playing blues is in the feel, and the choice of notes and chords that are used. Once you have those 3 things down, it all becomes a matter of practice and patience.
Normally, eighth notes break each beat into two equal pieces. They create the familiar “one & two & three & four &” feel that we re used to in rock music. In a swing feel, each beat is divided into three pieces. Instead of “one & two &,” we get “one & a two & a three & a four & a.” Dividing each beat into three pieces creates what are called eighth note triplets. Since there are almost always four beats per measure in the blues, you are almost always playing four groups of three.
When you are learning how to play blues guitar, you want to practice strumming a chord like an E7, which is a shorthand way to write E dominant 7. Remember that dominant seventh chords are not he same as major seventh or minor seventh. If it is not notated which type of seventh to use, then it is dominant. Practice strumming down on the strong beats, the ones labeled with a number one - four, skip the & and strum up again on the a. This gives the familiar do DAH do DAH do DAH do DAH sound made popular by artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and BB King.
Another big part of learning how to play blues guitar is learning how to play a dominant seventh type of chord. All chords have 2 pieces, and blues guitar chords are no exception. If you have an A7 chord, you know that the chord starts on an A, and is a dominant seventh type of chord. Dominant seventh chords use the root, third, fifth, and flatted seventh of the major scale. It is the juxtaposition of the major third and minor seventh tone that give dominant seventh chords their unique appeal. In most forms of music, only the chord built from the fifth scale degree is permitted to be a dominant seventh chord. In blues, all of the chords are dominant seventh.
Finally, the blues scale is also unique. The minor blues scale is built from the root, flatted third, fourth, flatted fifth (or raised fourth), fifth, and flatted seventh degree of the major scale. The major blues scale is created from the root, second, flatted third, third, fifth, and sixth degrees of the major scale. What is interesting to note, is that the chords are all dominant seventh, which means that they have a major third, but the scale contains a flatted third. This use of the flatted third in the melody against the major third in the chord is one of the most obvious characteristics of blues music. The flatted third, along with the flatted fifth, help to give the blues, and blues based music, it s blueness.
When learning how to play blues guitar, remember the words of the great BB King, “The blues is the easiest music to learn, and the hardest to master.” Blues guitar is made up of simple ideas, which when used together create something great than the sum of their parts.
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