How to Play the Blues on Guitar the Right Way

So the first thing I recommend you do is simply listen to some blues music. Listen to your favorite blues guitarists and just absorb their playing. This will help you to get a feel for the music and influence your playing. You'd be surprised how much this simple, and enjoyable, process can actually help you learn blues on guitar.

The next step is to actually start playing and learn some blues chord progressions! Now, you may have heard of this before: the 12 bar blues. It's the most well-known and widely used blues chord progression. And actually, it even spans out to many other kinds of music. So it's a great place to start to learn how to play the blues on guitar, and it's really easy. Here is the most basic form in the key of A:



For each chord there is four beats, so you play it four times for each letter. There are 12 measures in this progression (hence the name). It is often played with a "shuffle" feel, which looks like this:

For shuffle, the first beat you hold out a little longer and then the next beat is quick and shorter, and then you just repeat this through every chord and beat. I suggest you listen to some blues rhythm. Just about any Blues song will have this feel and when you listen to it, it'll be easy to get it.

So I recommend you practice the above progression till you can play it naturally and fluently. Then you should experiment a little and mix the chords up a bit.

That sums up the basics of blues rhythm. Congrats, you can now play the 12 bar blues progression, which is the essence of so many blues songs-it's also great to play lead over. You are on your way to learning how to play the blues on guitar. If you want to dive in and go even further, there are many more different blues chords, and chord progressions in all keys in Playing Through The Blues.

Now comes the fun part: soloing and playing lead! This is what everybody wants to be able to do. And with practice, you'll be able to improvise/solo naturally, and expressively. Improvising is, I think, really important to learn blues on guitar. All the greats do it all the time, and it's great because you can just play along with anything, anyone, anytime, and just be yourself and feel the music. No, guitarists don't just play random notes and pray they hit the right ones. They use scales. The most important and common blues scale is the minor pentatonic scale. Not only is it widely used in the blues, it also spans across all forms of rock and many other kinds of music. The scale looks like this:

To change keys, all you do is go to the sixth string and start the scale on whichever note that your key is. So, if you want to play in Cm go to the seventh fret on the sixth string and start the scale from there; this is really handy.

So now that you know the most important scale, how do you apply it to actual music? Well, when playing, you don't just go up and down the scale. That won't sound very good. Try experimenting a bit with the scale while playing to a blues backing track, or your fav. blues song. Get a good feel for the music and just play what you feel. And again, it'll help a lot to listen to your favorite blues guitarists. One thing that I (and many) struggled with at first, is I would keep on playing the same stuff, over and over. Don't do this, mix things up, experiment. It'd be helpful to learn a few blues licks and implement those to your playing. And you can change those licks around, too. Many great licks, backing tracks, and scales can be found in Playing Through The Blues. But to get an idea, here's one lick:

The last tip is one of the most important ones in blues: SOUL. Otherwise known as feeling or emotion. You see, you don't have to worry about having expensive equipment too much for the blues, what matters most is how you play. Now, I cannot possibly teach you exactly how to play with soul. It is something that comes from you, deep within you.

"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel."-Jimi Hendrix.

However, I will give you some helpful tips. I cannot stress this enough, you should listen to the blues a lot. Take in your favorite guitarists' playing and style. Now don't make the mistake of trying to completely copying someone; that's not what you want. Rather, influence yourself with several different blues guitarists, and mix and meld these influences together to create your own, unique style. This is very important: your own style.

Another thing very integral to learn how to play blues on guitar, expressively, is a few techniques like string-bending, vibrato, hammer-on/pull-offs, and sliding; all of which you can learn in Playing Through The Blues.

So that about covers all the nitty-gritty blues guitar basics. You know have enough knowledge to actually play the blues; you just need to practice now. Keep in mind you don't have to practice like crazy, one hour a day would do just fine. But practice according to your own schedule. If you want to get really serious about learning how to play the blues on guitar, don't just stop here. You may have heard me mention Playing Through The Blues. This is an online blues guitar lesson guide that teaches you in-depth how to play blues guitar using text and video demonstrations. This guide is rather easy to understand and will teach you everything you need to know, and more, about the blues. All the best chords, scales, progressions, licks, techniques and what's most important, how to implement all of these things into your playing. It also includes backing tracks for you to jam along with. We just scratched the surface of how to learn blues on guitar here. There're many more things to learn to be on your way as a master blues guitarist. If you practice, and follow the online guitar lesson course, I promise you will learn how to play blues on guitar, and play great.

Thank you for reading, and good luck!