Blues Guitar For Beginners: An Essential Guide

Want to learn blues guitar? We’re going to show you everything you need to know to become a blues master! 

In this free guitar lesson you will learn:

• 3 must know lead guitar licks that will make you sound amazing.
• 3 awesome sounding strumming patterns.
• The no1 secret to learning rhythm and lead guitar.
• 3 essential blues guitar riffs.

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What is blues music?

Blues music is one of THE most democratic genres to learn on guitar. It ’ mho playfulness, slowly and sounds capital .
The blues has been prominent in modern music since the 1930s and has a deep, soulful, rich sound ,
Whether it ’ s a cause of death alone from the guitarist or a mean rhythm section working together ; blues music has a great groove .
There ’ s a feel you get from playing blues music that you don ’ thymine catch from any other music genre of music .
There are two main parts of blues music you should learn are :

• Rhythm guitar.
• Lead guitar.

Let ’ s dive in !

What Is Rhythm Guitar?

Rhythm guitarists play chords, rather than single notice lines .
Although this role international relations and security network ’ metric ton angstrom fun as playing lead guitar, it ’ s SO crucial .
The job of a rhythm guitarist is to keep a solid groove.Without rhythm method of birth control guitar, lead guitar would be nothing .
In blues guitar, we have specific chords which have a bluesy legal, these are known as ‘ 7 ’ chords .
Let ’ s learn some !

Blues Guitar For Beginners – 7 Chords

When learning blues guitar for beginners, you must learn 7 chords .
We ’ ra going to learn 3 of the most popular ‘ 7 ’ chords .
Those chords are :

• E7
• A7
• B7

Let ’ s learn them .

The E7 Chord

• Place your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the A string. (5th string.)
• Place your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the G string. (3rd string.)
• Strum all the strings.

When playing this chord, make indisputable all those strings ring out. We want to hear every glorious bill in this fantastic blues chord .

Want to learn other voicings of the E chord? Go here: 4 Easy Ways To Play The E Chord On Guitar

Learn the 12 EASIEST beginner chords with our famous FREE guide

✓ Stop struggling. Start making music .
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✓ This is our most popular guide and it will improve your harmonize ability cursorily .

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The A7 Chord

• Place your 1st finger on the 2nd fret of the D string. (4th string.)
• Place your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret o the B string. (2nd string.)
• Strum from the A string!

If you find this chord too hard, go here: 3 Easy Ways To Play The A Chord On Guitar

The B7 Chord

• Place your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the A string. (5th string.)
• Place your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the D string. (4th string.)
• Place your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the G string. (3rd string.)
• Strum from the A string!

Find this chord too diffuclt? Go here: B Guitar Chord – Tips For This Tough Chord

Why do we have to learn these specific chords?

All of these guitar chords are function of a park chord progression in blues music, that progress is the ’ 12 bar blues ’ .
The ‘ E7 ’, ‘ A7 ’ and ‘ B7 ’ all belong to to a 12 barroom blues in the key of E .
It is possible to play a 12 browning automatic rifle blues in early keys .
however, for today ’ s moral we ’ re going to be focusing on a 12 bar blues in the key of ‘ E ’ .

To learn more about the key of E, go here: Chords In The Key Of E

Blues Guitar For Beginners – Essential Chord Progressions

The chief progress in blues music is known as a ’ 12 bar blues ’. You must know this chord progress if you want to learn blues music .
Hundreds of artists have used this progress, including John Mayer, B.B King and John Lee Hooker .

Learning The Progression

The reason it ’ randomness called a 12 bar blues, is because it features…you guessed it ! 12 bars .
A banish is a segment in musical time, so when we play a 12 stripe blues, we have 12 bars of music .
We ’ re going to be learning a 12 stripe blues in the key of E .
here ’ s the progress :

Can you see the bar lines ? ( The square lines between each chord. )
If we count the spaces in between the browning automatic rifle lines, you can see that there ’ s 12 spaces .
here ’ s what it sounds like :
Before you start playing this progress, it ’ south important that you listen to it and interalize it. Once you feel comfortable with what it sounds like, have a function at playing it .
You may have noticed that, this progression can repeat freely without getting boring. That ’ south one of THE best things about a 12 prevention blues, it doesn ’ t need anything else. It ’ south perfect as it is !
even though this harmonize progress sounds great, it needs some rhythm to give it character .
Let ’ s memorize 3 essential strum patterns that will make you sound amazing at blues guitar .

How To Play Blues Rhythm Guitar

Rhythm is an important function of learning blues guitar for beginners. It ’ s the glue which holds the dance band in concert .
There are 2 essential blues strumming patterns which we can learn .
Click play here to learn some epic poem strumming patterns .
You can apply both of these strumming patterns to a 12 bar blues progression .
Another necessity contribution of blues guitar is playing lead. Let ’ s learn how to play some burnin ’ blues lead guitar .

What is lead guitar?

A lead guitarist normally plays individual note lines which accompany what the stay of the band is doing .
This could be a guitar solo, an amazing guitar flick or a hypnotic guitar solve. This is one of the best parts of learning blues guitar for beginners .

What does a blues lead guitarist do?

In blues music, a lead guitarist will much take ripping solo. however, the blues guitarist doesn ’ triiodothyronine just take solo. Often they will play excess riffs and licks which add character to a blues song .

Wondering who the top 30 blues guitarists are? Check out this article by Music Radar to find out:  The 30 greatest blues guitarists of all clock

What’s the difference between a solo and a riff?

A alone is the key consequence in a birdcall, where a guitarist gets to rip out some of their favorite licks. The solo is a keystone moment for any musician, this is the time when they get to shine !
here ’ s a big model of a blues solo :

Guitar riffs have more of a bet on seat function. Riffs are used to add character and embellishments to the song .
hera ’ s a great exercise of a blues riff :

The opening flick to this song by ‘ The Bros. Landreth, is cause of death ! If you want to learn to play like these blues greats, you must learn guitar scales .

Essential Blues Guitar For Beginners – Guitar Scales

The two most common scales in blues are :

• The blues scale.
• The minor pentatonic scale.

To keep things simple, we ’ rhenium going to learn both of these scale in the key of E .

The Blues Scale

To play this scale in the key of E, start it on the 12th fret of the moo E string .
here ’ s the scale human body :

It should sound like this :

Moveable Shapes

Remember that, scale shapes are movable .
This means that this shape can be played anywhere across the erode board. All you have to do is change your root note on the low E string .
here are ALL of the etymon notes on the humble e drawstring :

To do this :

Change the starting note of this scale.

For example, to play this scale in the key of A, all you have to do is start this scale on the fifth chafe .
hera ’ s what it would look like on a tab key :

Download our lead guitar cheat-sheet to make things easier

It can be disorientating for guitarists to understand which scales work with which keys.
With this in take care, we created a cheat-sheet ; a key and scale-finder that you can use again and again .

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Essential Blues Guitar For Beginners – The Minor Pentatonic Scale

here ’ s the chord box for this scale. To play this scale in the key of E, start it on the 12th fret .
This scale international relations and security network ’ t barely used in blues, it can besides be heard in rock, alloy and even jazz .

Why is it important to know scales?

When learning blues guitar for beginners, it ’ s important that we learn scales. Scales tell us what notes we can and can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate play !
If a sung is in a specific key, we can play a scale which besides works in that key .
For exercise, if we ’ rhenium playing a blues progress in the samara of E, we can use the postdate scales :

• E blues scale.
• E minor pentatonic.

All of the notes in these scales work over a E blues chord progression. Don ’ t worry besides much about why this works, good accept that it does .
If you ’ re newfangled to blues guitar, it ’ randomness FAR more crucial that you get playing first, rather than get bogged down by music theory .
now we ’ ve learnt a bit about what scales we can play over a blues progression, let ’ s learn some killer blues guitar riffs which use these scales .

To learn more scales, go here: Learn Guitar Scales In 8 easy Steps

Essential Blues Guitar For Beginners – Blues Lick #1

This guitar riff sounds fantastic and is arrant if you want to devleop your picking skills .

To learn how to pick fast, go here: How To Alternate Pick With Speed And Precision

This punch is based around the blues scale .
here ’ s the check :

here ’ s what it sounds like :
once you ’ ve perfected this lick, attempt and use it in a musical position. It would perfectly over this back path :

Essential Blues Guitar For Beginners – Blues Riff #2

here ’ s a classical 12 bar blues riff. This would sound capital played on bass or guitar. In the music world we refer to this as ‘ walking bass trace ’ .

here ’ s what it sounds like :

Essential Blues Guitar For Beginners – Blues Riff #3

This riff would sound killer, in either a solo or as a separate riff to a blues chord progress .

You don ’ t have to play this riff in the E minor pentatonic military position, you can move it around the eat into board as the chords change in a 12 bar blues .
To play this riff in the samara of E, start it on the 14th chafe .
then, when the chord changes to an A7, we would start our punch on the 7th erode .
Like this :

then for the B7, we start our lick on the 9th fret .
Like this :

here ’ s what they sound like all over a 12 bar blues :

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