Blues Guitar – A Brief Introduction
Before starting to play the blues guitar, you should know a little about its origins. Blues is a term used to describe a particular genre of music as well as a musical form that had its origins in the African-American culture of the Deep South. The music evolved from work songs, spirituals, field hollers, chants, shouts and narrative ballads. Blues music is characterized by particular chord progressions such as the twelve-bar chord progression that just happens to be the most common. Blues can be divided into subgroups or styles such as the Delta, Jump, Piedmont and Chicago blues styles. Blues rock is a hybrid form that developed in the 1960s.
The most common form of blues guitar is the 12-bar blues. This refers to how many measures or musical bars are used when expressing usual blues songs. Most blues tunes are played to 4/4 time which means there are 4 beats in every bar or measure, and one beat represents one quarter note. The 12 bar blues are made up of three 4 bar segments. A sequence of notes called a standard blues progression uses three chords based on the first, fourth and fifth notes of an 8 notes scale. This is designated by the Roman numerals I, IV and V. The first 4 bars are dominated by the I chord, the IV chord is introduced in the second 4 bars and the V chord is played in the third 4 bars. The 12-bar format is not followed in all blues songs, but this musical framework will help you understand blues music.
When learning the blues guitar the shuffle rhythm is usually learned after the 12-bar concept is mastered. A basic shuffle rhythm in the key of A means that the notes come from the A major scale. A quarter note divided into three equal parts is called a triplet which is the basis for the shuffle rhythm. The triplet’s first 2 beats are united to make the first part of the beat longer and the second part shorter. In other words the term shuffle describes a beat broken into two parts where the first part is longer than the second. If you are a beginner, have your teacher or a more experienced guitarist play it for you.
One method of playing the blues guitar is the slide method where a tube on the finger or just a flat edged object like a knife presses down the strings. The unique sound fluctuations that result cannot be achieved when using the fingers to depress the strings. Blues slide guitar is associated with Muddy Waters who is considered “the Father of Chicago Blues.
blues guitar Before starting to play the blues guitar, you should know a little about its origins. Blues is a term used to describe a particular genre of music as well as a musical form that had its origins in the African-American culture of the Deep South.