Introduction to Blues Music

Let's learn about the Blues!

Quick background: A form of music based on the songs of African-American slaves, the blues has become an international style of music, found just about everywhere! The blues are also at the heart of Rock n Roll, which was greatly inspired by the blues, and can be heard in early rock songs like "Jonny B Goode" by Chuck Berry.

Who should learn about the blues? Anyone who wants to learn the blues, rock, or jazz

What makes the Blues unique? The blues is a very interesting form of music, because we often find ourselves mixing and matching the major and minor scale based on a particular note. It's not uncommon to play an A major chord (or an A7 chord, an A major with an added b7), while someone else is improvising a solo based on the blues scale in A (more on that below), which is based on an A minor scale!

Popular blues artists: BB King, Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughn

How to play the blues: The easiest way to get started playing the blues is to learn about the 12-bar blues. Let's talk about how to play the 12-bar blues for guitar and for bass.


How to play the 12 bar blues on guitar:

I'll show you the two easiest ways to play the blues in A (you can play the blues in any key, but A is the easiest on guitar). One way is playing rhythm guitar, the other is a way to play lead guitar.

First, how to play rhythm guitar for the 12 bar blues. Follow the tab below, using your 1st finger for fret 2, and your 3rd finger for fret 4.

Now, let's start learning how play lead. Start by learning the scale below, the Blues scale in A.

Now that you've got the easiest way to play the blues scale, let's use it in with a backing track. For those who don't know, a backing track is just a song that usually doesn't have any vocals or melody. You play along with it and create the melody by improvising!

Here's a backing track I made that you can use with your blues scale in A:

A few pointers to get you started. The A note is the strongest sounding note, and the best one to build your riffs around. If you don't know your fretboard yet (I've posted about it here), the A is on the 5th fret of your 6th string (low E), the 7th fret of the 4th string (D), and the 5th fret of the 1st string (high E). Otherwise, try not to jump around the scale too much or too quickly, and try to leave some space between your awesome riffs. Music is like a conversation; there should be natural pauses in your playing.

How to play the 12 bar blues on bass;

Here's a "walking" bass line that's pretty common to the blues:

Try playing this along with the video above. The trick is trying to match up your playing with the riffs I'm playing in the video. This is easier said than done without some sort of help (unless you've already got a really good ear for music), but do your best, and you'll get better with practice.


This is only the beginning...

There's a lot more to the blues than what's listed here, but this at least gives you a pretty basic introduction to what's involved in playing the blues. In the future we'll learn about turnarounds, other forms of the blues (not just the 12 bar blues!), minor blues, and more!