Without a doubt blues is the most popular sub style of guitar playing. While learning some styles can take years, getting started with the blues doesn’t have to and I’ve got 5 tips that if you take the time to learn and follow them will propel you ahead of the pack when taking blues guitar lessons.

The Basics of 12 Bar Blues

If there is one essential ingredient in everything blues, it’s the 12 bar blues pattern. While there is a little theory behind the 12 bar blues it won’t take too much to understand it.

The 12 bar blues are a simple pattern that uses the I, IV and V chords from a given key. If you’re not familiar with the term I IV V I’ll leave that to another lesson but it isn’t too difficult.

Below is the simple pattern made up of the one, the four and the five chords for the 12 bar blues:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 4 – 4 – 1 – 1 – 5 – 4 – 1 – 5

In the example above the 1 is for the one chord, the 4 the four chord and the 5 the five chord.

Get to Know Seventh Chords

If there was only one way to Blues up a chord progression I’d say it would have to be changing major chords to seventh chords during any 12 bar blues progression. For example if you were playing A, D and E then change those out to be the A seventh, D seventh and E seventh chords. Generally speaking these chords are note tough to play and can be found at several places on the neck as both open and barre chords.

Understand the Blues Scales

You’ve likely heard of the pentatonic scales, they’re the most popular rock and roll scale used for lead guitar. The only difference between a regular pentatonic scale and the blues scale is a 6th note added in known as the blue note. Like a regular pentatonic scale you can play these in several positions around the neck in a different key so knowing where the root note is an important part of learning to play lead to a particular 12 bar blues progression.

Don’t Over complicate

Beginners have a tendency to want to over complicate things when it comes to scales, progressions and the like. Generally speaking some of the sweetest sounding blues licks are also the easiest to play. Be sure that you do take some proper blues instruction whether that be from a private instructor or you purchase a blues guitar course.

Practice with Jam Tracks

Likely one of the most over looked practice techniques that will sharpen your lead playing skills and musical understanding is practice with blues jam tracks. A backing track is basically a song without a guitar track recorded. You can play this track on your computer, stereo or MP3 player and play along with it. These are extremely useful when you reach the point of learning blues guitar licks and lead techniques.

Many online guitar lesson courses have a series of jam tracks included in their membership area also most DVD blues courses come with some pre-recorded backing tracks as well.

If you’re ready to start playing blues guitar take a moment to visit our website where we compare & review the best blues guitar courses, we evaluate online guitar courses and DVDs.