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Think about this - Where did all the legendary Rock guitarists come from? You know, the axe-men behind Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Hendrix and many more. These guitarists all learned to play the Blues first, you can hear it every time they bent a string or churned out a classic Blues Scale lick.
blues is simple
blues is simple
It's not mandatory to learn to play Blues to be an amazing guitarist, but to miss out learning Blues is a bit like going to a concert with ear plugs. Blues was made for the guitar - and it's easy to play.
What's so important about learning Blues on the guitar? Well, apart from the fact that guitar is the best instrument for playing the Blues on, it makes chord harmony look simple - like anyone can do it. Blues doesn't bang on about Melodic minor scale and Super-Lochrian mode, or make a big deal out of Altered Dominant chord tension. Blues just says, "look I got a Blues Scale and it sounds great over any chords OK!"
"..useful as a learning academy for all modern guitar styles."
"..useful as a learning academy for all modern guitar styles."
blues to jazz
blues to jazz
Blues has evolved from that howling 3 chord (one-four-five) progression from the Mississippi Delta and become so much more useful as a learning academy for all modern guitar styles that have spawned from it.
After more than half a century it now comes in the 3 big harmonic flavours - Major, Minor and Dominant, having been infused with enough Jazz harmony to disguise it almost beyond recognition.
At it's most basic, Blues is 3 chords. The I, the 1V and the V (one, four, five). At it's most complex it looks like a Dizzy Gillespies' breakfast as it back-cycles through minor and major II V (2-5) with a few juicy jazzy chord substitutions thrown in.
Take a look at these 12 bar blues progressions, one basic and one fully Jazzed up.
A basic 12 bar
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
A somewhat jazzed up 12 bar
C | E-7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Gm7 C7 |
F | F#o | C7 | Dm7 A7 |
Dm7 | G7 | C A7 | Dm G7 |
Every chord progression in between these 2 examples contains every lesson about Chord Harmony and Chord Substitution. This knowledge is fundamental to anyone who wants to be a versatile lead or rhythm player today.
blues to rock
blues to rock
Show me a rock band whose guitarist doesn't churn out blues scale licks with distortion from time-to-time. OK,...there are quite a few iconic players who don't do that, but as an electric guitarist, it's impossible not to have been influenced by the sounds of the Blues. These sounds still surround us all and have influenced every generation of guitarist since the 1930's.
Blues was invented a long time ago by African-American slaves on the Mississippi Delta, then it teamed up with electricity and gave life to Chicago Blues with pioneers like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.
A decade or so later, Rhythm & Blues emerged which then turned into Rock & Roll, Richie Blackmore, Rory Gallagher and Jimmy Hendrix.
"...all you really need to play blues on the guitar, is a Blues scale and a bag of licks"
"...all you really need to play blues on the guitar, is a Blues scale and a bag of licks"
Forget the history lesson, I want to explain why I think the Blues is a great place to start learning contemporary guitar.
blues lessons
blues lessons
The Blues is the easiest way to understand how important the Flattened 5th (b5) interval is. Blues helps with theory and our ears by showing us how to use minor scales over major chords. Blues can explain how to use Diminished or Augmented chords and show us why C#-7b5 is really just an A7 in disguise.
But all you really need to play blues guitar, is a Blues scale and a bag of licks. And if you've ever wondered what the best thing to do with a 'Mixolydian Scale' is, then it's probably time to get stuck into a 12 bar blues!
Even if you want to learn to write songs or you're trying to get to grips with chord harmony, then the Blues helps you do that too.
Blues is a place to work on string bending too. If you play blues guitar you have to bend strings because that's where the pain is, but it's the control over the bending that electric blues guitarists need to learn. Fast bends, slow bends, pre-bends, tone bends, semitone bends, up-bends,down -bends - and of course - vibrato!
Considering that guitar string tension is different everywhere on the neck, mastering precision bending isn't as easy as it might seem. Luckily, learning to play out of tune is another thing you'll get from learning to play Blues so you can have fun messing up the bends. :)
Joe Bonamassa is a modern day master string bender and his 'Mountain Time' performance here has some examples of every kind of bend and a beautiful vibrato. Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.
Well, I hope I've made my point well enough to convince you how useful learning blues guitar is for introducing you to guitar techniques that carry in to rock and metal, and for learning chord harmony that slides you into Jazz and song writing and far beyond.
Above all, the Blues is fun to play on guitar and relatively easy for anyone to understand and have a go at.
Go and fill up your Bag of Licks with a few Blues beauties and have a jam with someone so you can learn how to use them.
I love a jam session, so If you're local and would like to have a jam with me, just get in touch on Facebook or Twitter and we can try fix one up.
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