the most important Blues Guitar Lesson you’ll ever watch online.
[Music] learning the blues is a great starting
point for any guitar player after all the blues laid the foundation for
western music as we know it a lot of people seem to think that it's an overly
simplistic style of playing but it's really not in fact there's a difference between
playing the blues and really playing the blues however there's a way that professional
guitar play the blues that I think lends way more to its authenticity and is definitely worth paying
attention to so today I'm going to share with you the professional Hallmarks of Blues guitar playing
But be sure to stick around till the very end of the lesson because I've got a free gift for you
and your guitar that you're both going to love from what I've observed over the years growing up
in Texas not just playing the Blues playing blues clubs with older musicians that really showed
me the ropes but also getting to just be around professional Blues guitarists in both Texas and
in LA and now in Nashville I've noticed a lot of patterns in a way that these professional guitars
play the blues and I really try to pick up on them and the funny thing is it really boils down to
some very simple principles so let's talk about the first one which is really nailing down the 12
Bar Blues most guitar players who play the blues or even just dabble in it are familiar with the 12
Bar Blues it's the very Foundation that most blues music is written on and it's just really easy
to pick up and also duplicate when you're either writing your own blues songs or even just jamming
your your own blues jam but there's a certain depth to your musicianship that really comes from
having the 12 Bar Blues like in your bones just knowing that framework so well that whatever kind
of situation that you plug yourself into if it involves a 12 Bar Blues Jam you're going to know
exactly what to do for that entire time no matter how many times it repeats and it's something that
I invite any guitarist to learn whether or not you're trying to learn the blues at all just being
able to count that's really what it all comes down to and if you want to work on getting the 12 Bar
Blues down what I recommend you do is throw on a blues tune and don't even touch your guitar just
count your way through it now not all Blues is written in the 12 Bar format but most of it is so
if we're talking most famous Blu songs let's say there's a good chance that it's written in the 12
Bar format and here's what I want you to do when you throw on that record and you count I want you
to have every first count of every measure reflect the number bar that you're in so for example we're
starting off would be 1 2 3 3 4 2 2 3 4 3 2 3 4 4 2 3 4 all the way to 12 2 3 4 before it repeats
this sets you on track for building the habit of just having that steady pulse internally
to where after a while you don't even have to think about it anymore and you can just kind of
feel the 12 Bar Blues and you won't even need a backing track or a band to manifest it you can
just start playing and you'll play Within that format subconsciously but it really comes down to
just count counting along when you're listening to your favorite Blues records or just get on YouTube
and just throw some random ones on and then just start counting kind of quiz yourself it's fun you
know but after a while like I said it'll just get so ingrained in you that you just kind of count
automatically whether you're conscious of it or not and it just comes through and how you play
so that's the first principle is just getting the 12 Bar Blues down until it's just practically
a part of your DNA right this is how you're going to understand the blues on such a level that's
going to come through in your Rhythm and Lead playing and it Segways perfectly into the second
principle which is being able to keep good timing or as a lot of professionals say playing in the
pocket basically what that means is no matter what you're doing whether you're playing by yourself
or in a band you are just locked in that timing is just there right and it's pretty easy to see
how that first principle leads into it right having the 12 Bar Blues down to where it's just
internalized right and then apply a good sense of timing to where you're just locked in the pocket
with that 12 Bar Blues format and it doesn't matter if you're playing in a band or playing by
yourself let's take for example what I did at the very beginning of the video I played through a
12 Bar Blues that was mostly improvised really I just kind of had a key and a framework in mind and
then I just stuck to some very very simple uh lead stuff and then just made sure that I locked in the
chord changes and followed through with that 12 Bar Blues so I'll show you the chords I was using
it was an A9 a D9 and an E7 essentially the 14 five the three chords necessary that you'll hear
in a 12 Bar Blu and we're in the key of a right but I wasn't doing like a constant driving you
know Cowboy Blues thing like I wasn't doing that in fact I was just doing little cord stabs and
this is where my point of staying in the pocket really comes into play because if you're doing a
driving constant Rhythm it's easier to keep time because you're you constantly have a reference
point right but in what I was doing at the beginning of the video there's a lot of space so
it really comes down to just letting that internal timing take over so what I was doing I I won't
play any of the lead stuff yet we'll get into that in our third principle but uh with just the
chords it was like this like one two one two 3 4 1 1 2 3 2 right that's what I was doing just these
chord stabs kind of like something you'd hear a horn section play on a great blues record
especially like in Chicago Blues a lot of horns in there right so let's break down these
chords one by one let's start with the A9 chord you take your first finger you're
going to play the fourth fret of the a string your third finger is going to play
the fifth fret of the D string your second finger is going to play the fourth fret
of the G string so it's kind of like a d chord shape right like when you're playing a
d chord you're doing the same thing up here but then we're going to add our pinky
on the fifth fret of the uh B string and this chord is the same as this you know it's
pretty common to play like ninth chords in this particular shape which you'll see when we get
to the D9 chord the four chord right but that one chord this is how an A9 would look and
your root note a is right here so it's like we're starting on the third we got all the
notes necessary to make up that A9 chord so that's what that looks like all right that's
our chord our four chord A D9 chord is like this we're going to take our second finger put
it on the fifth fret of the a string our first finger is going to be on the fourth fret of the D
string right and then we we have two options here we can either use our third and fourth fingers to
play the fifth fret on the G and B strings or you can bar with your third finger like this just
kind of gently mash it on just the G and the B strings you can do that or you can do it like
this where kind of almost looks like a G chord right almost but just like a more squeezed in
G chord and that's the D9 chord that's our four chord so here's our one chord here's our four
chord for our five chord I went with the E7 now you technically could play an E9 which is the
same as the same exact shape as the D9 brought up two Frets but I just kind of like how the E7 is
voiced comparatively with the um the D9 and the A9 cuz they're all sharing this note here right
so and then right and so you can hear how these changing chords how the tonality shifts the feel
of this single note here which is nice I like that so let's go ahead and go over this
E7 shape so this is our five chord E7 we take our third finger it's going to go on
the seventh fret of the a string second finger is on the sixth fret of the D string pinky is on
the seventh fret of the G string then our first finger is going to go on the fifth fret of the B
string so all three of these chords pretty much occupy the middle four strings here A D G and B
all right so that's all you got to worry about we're not worried about any of the E strings right
not the e or the high e just these middle strings right here and we're only going to be employing
these in little cord stabs right so when we're counting them right if it's if we're going to do
the 12 Bar Blues thing it'll go something like this and of course we got to add a swing field to
it so the count is going to be like one a two a three a four a two a two a three a four or three a
two a three a four or four or two and here we go a one or two or three or four or two or two or three
or four three or two or three or four or four or two two or three or 4 five or two or three or 4
a 6 or two a three or 4 a 7 or two or three or 4 a eight or two or three or 4 9 a two a three or
4 a 10 a two a three or 4 11 a two a three or 4 12 a two a three or 4 so that was hard trying to
like keep time count it out and make sure I was making any sense at all right but I think I made
it through so just to show you how sparse those little cord stabs were right and of course there
going to be more that we can do to fill on the we're not just trying to emulate a horn section
we're trying to apply a little bit more of a full package especially as just playing solo guitar
right but that's kind of the timing you know one or two or three or four and as you can hear
I counted through 12 bars so that was an entire 12 Bar Blues that I just played and of course when
you're practicing this if this is something that you're new to you don't have to go straight into
the tempo that I'm using here obviously want to start slow and give yourself time to think about
your moves as you're doing them and that might painfully slow at first but it's important to just
get the consistency down and then over time start to gradually increase your timing until you reach
a Tempo like what I just did oh and by the way if you're getting value out of this lesson please hit
that like button and consider subscribing to our YouTube channel really helps us out and it lets
us know that you'd like to see lessons just like this one which we'd be more than happy to give
to you so thanks in advance and let's get back to business and the third and final principle that
professionals use when playing the blues is to make the notes feel good whether you're playing a
handful of notes or a bunch of notes they all just got to feel right what this means is there's no
room for wankery right or just overplaying I mean you have the freedom to do that but it doesn't
necessarily make you look like a professional blues player and I'm I'm not trying to talk like
I'm some kind of ultimate Authority on Pro blues players everything I'm telling you is something
I've observed from players much better than myself that I respect and look up to and some of which
I'm I'm lucky to actually be friends with that I've really gotten to learn firsthand from
and it's just ingrained in me so consider me a messenger from having gone through all of that
experience and all that observation and these are all based on patterns that I've noticed this is
something that these principles are all shared with these guitar players you know and this is
also true for legendary blues guitar players of course these professionals emulate the people that
have blazed the trail before them you know you name it BB King Freddy King Albert King Albert
Collins Robin Trower Steve Ron jimy Hendricks I mean you name it they all do it now you may ask
what does it mean for notes to feel good like what is that is that even a thing that'd be a good
question because it is something that goes into that sort of intangible you know it when you hear
it and it's something that you can really feel but it's hard to quantify right but if I were to try
to quantify it I would it would really come down to this the notes just have to be in the pocket
right your timing's got to be good so it hearkens back to the second principle which I would say
you know even though it's in the middle it's probably the most important overall and since it
doesn't matter what quantity of notes you're using to make them feel good let's see what we can do
with just a handful of notes let's use four to be exact in fact if we're in the key of A like we
did in the example with the chords let's just do this middle pentatonic hot box right here fifth
fret seventh fret on D fifth fret seventh fret on G so those four notes but within that little
framework we can do all kinds of things bend a br slides all that kind of stuff anything's fair
game within that little uh box there so those four notes are all we're going to need to use
to to see how we can make them feel good so if I were to recall what I did at the beginning of
the video I was combining these four notes these specific four note box here right with those
chords right it's all kind of coming together now and I started off with a line pretty sure
that's what it was right something really simple something that moves right so if I were to count
it out you know like one a two a three a [Music] four there you go it's all coming [Music] together
so like I'll stop myself right there but you can see where I'm going with this right just using
a handful of notes in combination with those simple chord stabs with all that space that
is fine that's not like dead space it's not free form space it's controlled space because
it's all within the 12 Bar Blues format and I'm really making a point to stay within the
pocket so that you could tap your foot Bob your head snap your fingers whatever but follow
along with what I'm doing rhythmically and those four notes give you the perfect opportunity for
playing lines in between those cord stabs so you can make it a little more driving and less
open as far as space goes but they're still very much a lot of space so I did that little
lead in [Music] lick four chord right back to the one [Music] chord five [Music] chord you
know then we get to the end you know like you can choose to end it like however you want if you want
to just do one round of 12 bars then you [Music] can something like that you know uh another
thing actually what I just did there that little that little sort of one fret slide you
know slide out and back you can [Music] do add some color you know so if I were to add
that to the mix it'd be like uh [Music] I like [Music] that you know and I mean you could
keep it going because that's the thing about the 12 Bar Blues you can basically copy paste you
know those 12 bars as many times as you want then when you choose to end it that's when you
can kind of free form it or you can do like uh like a trash can ending you know where it's just
like you know you can bring the one chord up a fret like sharpen it and [Applause] then like
do that kind of thing I mean it's it's it's fair game at that point but as long as you're
you know you stay locked in right you you you got that 12 Bar Blues Foundation just inside
your bones you got that 12 Bar Blues Foundation just like ingrained within you and then you stay
within the pocket your timing is good I mean be to tap your foot while you're playing is a
big part of it and I know that that's a huge challenge for a lot of guitar players believe
me took me a long time to to just line up my body with what I was playing I get that there's
definitely a learning curve there that's why you want to start simple and if you really just start
with you know tapping your foot or bobbing your head or just moving your body in some kind of way
like just a slight kind of groove right then you can just start playing and then after a while you
won't even think about it just something that you do and by staying in that pocket whatever
notes you play are going to automatically feel good whether you're playing four notes
or 100 notes so I invite you to start with the examples that I just gave you before you start
expanding outward and and throwing in different chords or uh you know more of let's say the minor
pentatonic scale don't get ahead of yourself start with the foundation I mean there's a lot that
you can do with just those simple chords and the simple for note box that we've worked with
there really is a lot you can do and so focus on getting the most out of that first and once
you do that you've laid this Foundation that will set you up for everything that you do from
now on within the blues will just have that same kind of professional feel to it because you'll
have the 12 Bar Blues down like the back of your hand your timing will be locked in and you'll
be making all those notes feel good no matter how many that you use oh and by the way everything
that we have just gone over is movable to whatever key you want to use it in all you have to do is
this find the root note on the low E string so in this case we're in the key of a right fifth
fret of the below E string and so I found that A9 chord by starting off you know one fret below
and one string down and then filled out the chord and then you know the rest of them kind of all
were anchored around this sort of central point and then I had that that pentatonic box right
if I wanted to move this to let's say the key of C right find which happens to be right here the
root note C on the low E string is the eighth fret I would just remember go one string down one
fret below and then form that now I have a C9 chord and then the four chord all right which is
an F9 chord then I have and then the five chord G7 right here F9 C9 and then that pentatonic
box would be right here eighth fret 10th fret on D and [Music] G so if I want to play the exact
same thing just move it to a different key that's all I'd have to do but if I were to move keys I
would try to do different things like you know like [Music] [Applause] a I know that sounds real
similar but just make slight changes just to keep it interesting so now you know what professional
Blues guitarists keep in mind when they're playing the Blues in order to make it sound the most
authentic and the most Musical and you also know the perfect cut and paste formula of using a
fourn note box in tandem with three Blues chords that'll work in any key and we touched on moving
Keys just a little bit but if you want to take it even further I got just a thing that's going
to show you how to take what we learned today and play it in any key even the hard ones and not
just that it'll teach you how to confidently Solo in any key as well and it just so happens to be
my gift to you for making it to the end of this video and here it is this is a free lesson on how
to instantly Solo in any key it's going to show you how to comfortably and confidently navigate
the fretboard no matter what key you're playing in rain or shine lead or rhythm and it's my gift
to you absolutely free just be sure to click here to claim your copy or check that link in the
description box we've all heard that the blues is a feeling but it's something that really
shines through when you play it properly and if you apply what we've learned today you're going
to be able to play the blues like the best of them
