Learn Guitar Lesson: 7 Minute Blues Guitar

« Your Solution For Learning Bar Chords Fast And Easily On Guitar | Home | Learn Guitar Basics – The Fastest Way To Learn Chords On Guitar »

By Mike Hayes | December 18, 2010

Going from zero to blues guitar hero isn’t as hard as you may
think! At first the task might seem impossible, the trick is to
learn to take baby steps; that’s the key, once you see the power
of learning in small, easy steps you will have discovered one of
the most important secrets of the professional guitarist.

Here we go with the baby step concept!

I’m going to show you how to play “Before You Accuse Me” from the
Eric Clapton “unplugged” album; it’s a great album for playing
along with as most of the instruments are acoustic and there is
not a lot of heavy studio production so the instruments sound
quite natural.

Essentially music is “pitch in time”; if we dug deeper into this
thing called music we would also discover that music has “form
and content”.

Now it’s time to apply these fundamental principals to learning
and remembering the blues

Step 1: Learn the form of the song: There are various formats or
musical structures for the blues e.g., 8, 12, 16 and 24 bar blues
are the most popular blues song forms; the 12 bar version is by
far the most frequently used blues template.

Our first decision is to identify the correct ’song form’ for
“Before You Accuse Me”.

Before You Accuse Me is a 12 bar blues song form.

Let’s set up the bars for our song; the key to remembering songs
is by laying out your song in a “four-bar-to-a-line” template.

|//// | //// | //// | //// |

|//// | //// | //// | //// |

|//// | //// | //// | //// |

Visually, the ‘four bar to line’ format makes it easy to spot
similarities in the chord progression, many times songs have
identical chord progressions however, because of various printing
considerations in printed music books it is extremely difficult
to identify the recurring patterns; sometimes there will be three
bars to a line, the very next line may have five bars and so on.

Step 2: Identify the content of the song. Most 12 bar blues fit
nicely into one of four blues ‘content’ templates.

“Before You Accuse Me” is no exception, here is the 12 bar blues
song ‘form’ presented with it’s correct musical ‘content’.

Before You Accuse Me

|E7 /// | A7 /// | E7 /// | E7 /// |

|A7 /// |A7 /// | E7 /// | E7 /// |

|B7 /// |A7 /// | E7 /// | E7 /// |

And there we have our song ready to play along with Eric Clapton!

I’ve presented the song in the same exact key as the recorded
version and even though the song will play for 3 to 4 minutes
it’s just this same simple progression played over and over; even
while the solos are being played; just concentrate on tapping
your foot and keeping track of where you are in the chord
sequence.

The trick with playing along with the recorded version is to
remember that the chord progression we have just learned begins
when the vocals start.

Your first strum will coincide with the lyric “Be-fore you accuse
me” etc …

Strum your first “E7? chord on – “fore” ; (Be) – fore you accuse
me etc.

BTW: If you do happen to have the Eric Clapton “Unplugged” album
there’s another song on that album that uses the exact
progression … try playing along with track 12 “Malted Milk” and
you will have already learned how to play two songs; baby steps
really do work!

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Tips | No Comments »

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.