I want to be a blues guitarist but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I would not get too hung up on tabs. My advice is to listen, listen, listen !!!.... to as much blues as you can. Try to copy what you hear. That's how the early blues men learned their trade. The artists you list are among the best.

Contrary to "Yogosan's "opinion, I think it would be beneficial to learn some basic theory. Anything you learn wont go to waste.

If you can afford lessons then IMO they are worth it. Even a half a dozen would get to off to a good start.

GerB40 wrote: »

Where could I find this basic theory?

http://www.billygreen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Music%20Theory%20-%20Basic,%20Intermediate,%20Advanced.pdf


My advice is to only spend five to ten minutes at a time, reading slowly through it for now. Otherwise your head will burst !! :pac:

Combining a little basic theory, close listening to blues guitarists, and taking a few lessons from a good teacher, should go a long way towards helping you to learn to play the blues.

Finally...two more very important ingredients ......time and patience.


Best of luck with it !!!!

All good advice OP. But none of it really worth a damn if you don't got a good woman to done leave ya, and a faithful dog to done die.



Or is that for country...?

D'you live near a crossroads at all? I hear that helps sometimes.

Hey Ger,

First off Rory Gallagher is the perfect place to start, Rory will also bring you in contact with the likes of Son Hourse, Blind Boy Fuller, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, these are the guys that are really worth listening to and learning from. all of the top blues players will say RObert Johnson is unsurpased. This will seem strange at first when you listen to him and then listen to someone with faultless technique and incredibile ability such as Stevie Ray Vaughan (also a great player in his own right). But everything you need to know about blues is on a Robert Johnson Compliation. The hard part is putting in the time to really listen and dissect what he is doing. This requires a bit a of persistence but there's loads on help online. Then, as Rory did, you can infuse your own (Irish presumably) roots and put your own mark on it, learn from these guys but always be conscious of developing your own thing. I think it's worth learning the Minor pentatonic, Major Pentatonic, Blues Scale and Mixolydian Scales to start of with, don't neglect rythym playing it's just as important as lead playing, learn how to play dominant or '7th' chords, look into 'hybrid' picking, that is holding the pick but using your middle, ring and baby finger to pick the strings as well. The best progress is incremental, set realistic goals, when you pick up the guitar be serious about it, a half hour solid practice everyday is worth 5 hours just noodling, take pride in it, do the basic things over and over, perfect it, it's about having a great tone, a great feel and this comes through the solitary hours you put into it, that's my two cents anyways, It's worth it, as Charlie parker said (jazz but relevant to blues) learn all that **** and forget about it when you play

Good on ya, Few more tips, sorry if anything is too basic

In terms of theory and structure you're also talking about learning some of what's below. It can be confusing at first, but once you get your head around it you have it for life so don't be discouraged, If there's anything I haven't explained well please let me know and I'll try and make it clearer

the 12-bar sequence, this normally involves the I chord , the IV Chord and V Chord. For example E, A and B7. In blues all of the major chords are often played as seventh chords, so you would have E7, A7, B7. So you could End up with a sequence like this

E7 (4 Bars)
A7 (2 Bars)
E7 (2 Bars)
B7 (1 Bar)
A7 (1 Bar)
E7 (2 Bars, the 'turnaround)


By the 'I' Chord I mean C if we are in the key of C which has the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-B. If we harmonise the notes of the C Major Scale we get the following chords

C-Major (the I Chord)
D-minor
E-minor
F Major (The IV Chord)
G Dominant (more commonly called G7th or the V Chord)
A-Minor
B-Diminished


Turnarounds (you can never know enough, these occur usually on the 11th and 12th bar or just the 12th), turnarounds are basically a way of ending a sequence and giving the listener a signal of where we are in the sequence and that a new one is about to begin, trunarounds are essential as blues could be very repetitive without them

It's good to know your 'relative' keys, for example a-natural minor has the same notes as c-major, so an a-minor scale
sounds good over on a song in the key of C.

The Key of C Major has the same notes as the key of A (natural) minor, just different root/bass/tonic/starting or ending point).

Another example is G and Em, where an E-minor pentatonic scale would sound good or F and D-minor. A and F#minor, D and B-minor, E and C#minor.

Dominant chords are basically major chords with a flat seventh, this is clearer if we compare a C-major seventh chord, which is just a major chord with the seventh note from the c Major scale added in as well to the chord giving us the notes C-E-G-B, a C-dominant chord would have C-E-G-Bflat.

Chords are basically made up from scales. The C major scale is C-D-E-F-G-A-B. We make chords by 'stacking thirds', that means we start with C, count up three notes (including the C) to E, then frome E to G and finally G to B to give us C-E-G-B, A major C chord just has C-E-G, a major 7 chord has C-E-G. A Minor Chord has a flat third, this means C-Eb-G, a minor 7 chord has a flat third and a flat seventh, which for Cminor 7 would be C-Eb-G-Bb.

It's good to get familiar with different time signatures and rhythtms

Look up
12/8 which is very common
Texas Shuffle
Blues Boogie
Ragtime Blues

Another thing to consider is call and response motifs

It's good to know this stuff, it certainly does no harm but it is true you don't have to know theory to be a great player, BB king doesn't know how to play too many chords for example, but it helps to communicate your ideas to other players and it's better to know this stuff than not know it,

and that's another point, the most important thing in your development is to play with other musicians, best of luck

It's also worth developing a libary of 'licks', these are musical phrases that can be used again and again, remember what you don't say is often as effective as what you do, leave space between you melodic lines, or in other words have space between phrases in your solos, this is analoguos to someone who talks too much is never really listened to, where as the guy who says little but talks sense when he does is more sought after

Becoming a blues guitarist is easy
1. Get a guitar
2. Learn to play the guitar
3. sell your soul to the devil at a crossroads on a moonlit night

I've been learning going on four years now and like you I'm in love with Blues, it's all I wanted to play since I first picked it up.

The number one most important thing I learned how to do was to play the pentatonic scale. It might seem incredibly boring at first, and you'll wonder if it's worth it, or if it's any use at all. But once you figure it out and can move up and down the neck seamlessly through it's different positions you will feel like a whole world has opened up for you.

Start with Am position 1, practice it over and over and over slowly at first then gradually build up your speed until you can effortlessly run it up and down mistake free.

Load up an Am blues jam track on youtube then using your new knowledge, mess about with those notes, slide between 5 & 7 on the G string, mess about with bends, pull offs, vibrato.

Once you're comfortable with position 1, start learning 2 and 5 (positions either side) and keep jamming along to backing tracks, it gets easier and easier.

Once you've figured out the five positions of the scale you can now play it in any key by simply starting on a different position on the neck, Gm blues is the most amazing sound imo.

Have fun, it's the most euphoric thing once you start to finally get it.