3 levels of blues shuffles for beginners

hey guys in today's video i'm going to give you three levels of blue shuffles that you can do from beginner to intermediate to advanced so let's dive into that right now level one so the first level of the blue shuffle that i have beginners start out on all the time is an open a blues shuffle and this is just using open power chords so there's a couple of different ways that you can do this you can do this using just one finger which sometimes a lot of students who just want to use their first finger or you can use your first and third fingers to do this so here's how this looks you're just gonna do an open a power chord which is your fifth string open and then you have the second fret on your fourth string and you play those together now if you've never done that play that a few times okay and then all you're gonna do is you're gonna play that open with the second fret and you're gonna play that two times in a row like this [Music] and then what you're gonna do is leave that first finger down and put your third finger down on the fourth fret of the fourth string okay so we're going to be holding down two frets but that will give you this sound so you have your second fret fourth fret now if that four if that fourth fret with your third finger is uncomfortable then what you can just do is slide your first finger up to that fourth fret so there's a little bit more motion involved with that but that's okay but that's basically it what you're gonna do is you're gonna play your second fret twice and then the fourth fret twice and then the second fret twice and the fourth fret twice and that is one measure okay we're playing eighth notes here so we've got eight notes in a measure that we're playing with this and that'll be the basis of what we do for the rest of it too [Music] then what i have students do is go to the next set of strings so you're going to do your fourth string open and you're gonna put your first finger on the second fret of your third string and then use your third finger or slide your first finger up to the fourth fret on your third string so you'll have this and you're just gonna play that for one measure [Music] and then you're gonna go back down to your open a power chord which is the first one that we started so the first chord we played is a the second chord is d so far we have a for one measure and then d for one measure [Music] and then we're going to go back to a and play that for two more measures and then we switch back to d and do that for two measures [Music] and then back to a for two measures and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna drop down to your open e so we're gonna use your open sixth string which is an e note where it gets its name and then your first finger is on the second fret of your fifth string and we'll play the fourth fret on that fifth string as well so you'll play that for one measure [Music] and then switch to your d so fourth string open [Music] and then your a and if you're gonna end it play a for one more measure and end on that chord but if you want to repeat it and go back to the top then after that last a you're going to go back to your e [Music] [Applause] and then it starts over so [Music] and then whenever you're going to end it you just end on that first chord that you play and it's going to sound great now that is the very basic first level blues shuffle that i do and this is based on what we call the 12 bar blues now bar is just another term that we use for measure means the exact same thing and that pattern that we just played is 12 measures long so that's why it's called 12 bar blues and this pattern gets used all the time if you don't know this i don't know you know i feel like this should be required learning for every guitar player regardless of style you should know the 12 bar blues in fact one time a college professor was telling me that he had students who'd come in to audition to be in the guitar program and he'd say all right let's jam on a 12 bar blues and there would be people auditioning for college that didn't know the 12 bar blues this drives me crazy i don't see how anybody can not know that so this is required learning now here's the trick i play that with a syncopated rhythm which means i'm galloping my rhythm i'm playing long short long short long short long short long short long short long right so that's what we call syncopation is when we take eighth notes which are normally one and two and three and four and and we stagger them so we play them later and they go one and two and three and four that is called swinging your rhythm or syncopating it if you want to be fancy okay and so here's what this would sound like i could play it straight as well and here's the cool thing if you play it swung you have the blues if you play it straight you have rock and roll so whichever way you want to do it find by me have fun with it try both ways really now couple variations that you can do on this is as you get really comfortable with it you can play your fourth fret for just one note instead of for two so that way you'd go one and two and three and four one two and three and four two four right so that's one thing that you can do you can also change that note that we're adding right so you can play it for the fourth fret and then slide up to your fifth fret and back down to four and then back down to two right there's all sorts of fun things that you can start to explore and have fun with as soon as you're comfortable with doing it the basic easy way first hey guys if you're enjoying this video on these three levels of blue shuffles for beginners do me a favor and hit the subscribe button and hit the bell notification so that you'll be notified every time i upload a new lesson thanks a lot for subscribing now let's get back to these blue shuffles level two okay so level two is when you're comfortable with doing these in your open a then what we need to do is we need to be able to move this around and do this in any key on the guitar and so that's going to take us to doing this with power chords now normally a power chord for example looks like this i've got my first finger on five on my sixth string and my third finger on seven on the fifth string right but to do this what you're gonna do is actually take that third finger and put your second finger there so this is a bit of a stretch so i recommend starting this out as high as you can on the fretboard so if you're playing electric do this with your first finger on 10 on your sixth string and your second finger on 12 on the fifth string if you're playing an acoustic just get it as high as you can if you have a cutaway that's going to be a lot easier if not just get as high as you can but here's the thing this is the same pattern as we did down here okay but here's the trick now we are actually using our finger to do this lowest note so whatever note you're playing here low on your lower string that is going to name whatever chord it is which is another reason why you need to be learning the notes on your fretboard right so for example right here on my 10th fret on the sixth string that is a d and so that means i'm playing a d power chord right here so what we can do is we can take this power chord and do the exact same thing only now i'm going to use my pinky and i'm going to play 10 with my first finger 12 with my second finger then i'm going to use my pinky to play 14 on that fifth string [Music] okay now thumb position is going to be crucial for this because you are stretching your first finger back the mistake i see a lot of people do is they put their thumb kind of behind their first finger and really have to stretch their for their pinky up and that's really uncomfortable what you want to do is actually put your thumb behind your second finger and stretch your first finger back that first finger has a much easier time reaching back across the fretboard than your pinky does reaching up on the fretboard right especially when you're just starting out i know you get to a point you can do whatever right but when you're starting out stretching that first finger back is going to be a lot easier and so if i do that i can follow this cool new pattern like this where i've got my d here and i can play that same pattern and then when i change to my next chord i wanna actually since i'm playing it here on my fifth string i'm gonna just shift strings [Music] so that puts my first finger on a g on the fifth string which is ten on the fifth string my first finger's on twelve on the fourth string and then my pinky is playing 14 on the fourth string and then i'm going to change back to my d which is on the sixth string and then for the third chord what i'm going gonna do is actually go over to my fifth string so my first finger is on the fifth string my second finger is on the fourth string and i'm going to slide it up two frets so now my first finger is on 12 my second finger's on 14 and my pinky is going to play 16. again if you're on an acoustic just go as high as you can okay but this is just an example and then back down to the 12 and 10. [Music] and then down to 12 and 10 on the sixth string [Music] so if i play the 12 bar blues in d it's gonna sound like this [Music] now the cool thing about this particular way of doing this is i can place my root note anywhere on the sixth string with this power chord and i can play it in any key so for example this was d up here on the tenth fret but if i come down to my 6th fret [Music] i'm in b flat right that's a totally different key very common in the blues by the way or i could do it down here on my second and fourth fret which is a lot harder because your frets are further away [Music] but i'll show you an easier way to do that one in just a little bit and so that means now you can play the blues in any key you can place your root note on your sixth string and follow this pattern of doing your first chord here the second chord in the progression which is what we call the four chord we'll talk about that another time and then the third chord that you play in the progression which is what we call the five chord [Music] and so you have a little pattern there with with being on 10 and 12 then switching strings for 10 and 12 and then going 2 frets higher for 12 and 14. and that same pattern transfers so if i come down here to seven then i've got seven and nine and then for this four chord i'm gonna play seven and nine on my fifth and fourth string for the five chord i can slide that up to nine and eleven [Music] level three now for years the only way i played the blues and shuffle blues and twelve bar blues patterns was either using bar chords if it called for or doing the patterns that i've shown you with level one and level two but then i learned a really cool way that the great blues players use to be able to play the blues and jam all night long without their hand dying because if you're doing this [Music] your hand gets tired because it's a big stretch for a long time and you're having to do a lot of work with it so what do the great blues players do they make it easy because anybody who's worth their salt does things the easiest way that they can nobody does things the hard way just to do it the hard way right so check this out this is a really cool way that you can do this and you can play the blues all night long and it's so much easier so what you're gonna do let's do this in d again i'm gonna do my second finger on 10 on my sixth string and then i'm going to put the my pinky is actually going to do 12 on the fifth string so this is a little power chord with my second and fourth fingers which is that's a little bit unconventional right but then what i'm gonna do is on the fourth string i'm gonna put my first finger on nine now here's why i'm gonna do this this nine on my fourth string is the same note as 14 on my fifth string so what i'm going to do is i'm going to play this power chord that's 10 and 12 and with my first finger down on 9 i can lift up on my pinky and i'm letting my first finger just touch my fifth string to mute it but then i can play with my root note and my first finger playing that note which is the sixth and i can do that without having to stretch my hand so it's a little bit different because now instead of putting a finger down to hit that sixth note what i'm going to do is i'm actually going to lift up a finger and get this [Music] and so it's the same idea you can move this around the fretboard and do it on any note and you can do this with root notes on your sixth string [Music] or root notes on your fifth string [Music] and it doesn't matter you can move it around so you can use this to make that f sharp that i talked about earlier easier too by doing your second finger on your f sharp your pinky playing the fifth and then your first finger catching that sixth note now what i recommend doing is starting out with level one and getting comfortable with level one then getting comfortable with level two and then giving level three a try but i'll tell you what if you're gonna be playing a bunch of blues and jamming with people and doing this for a long period of time level three is going to save your hand you won't believe how much easier it is to play that for extended periods of time now thanks for watching today guys if you've watched this far i do have a gift for you that i want you to have if you go to simpleguitar.com top 10 there i have a guide for you called the top 10 things to learn on guitar first which is a free guide that i've put together that it's 10 things that i like to teach beginners first to get them up and playing and having more fun making real music on the guitar a lot faster so go to simpleguitar.com top 10 download that guide for free it's my gift to you my way of saying thank you for sitting here and learning about these blue shuffles with me today and have fun with it and have fun with these blues shuffles go play them go get them down so that if you audition for college you know how to jam with your professor right and so that you can jam with your friends and have a ton of fun too right so thanks a lot for being here thanks for liking and subscribing and commenting and all that fun stuff and i will catch you guys in the next video [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Simple Guitar

Views: 8,582

Keywords: blues shuffle for beginners, 3 levels of blues shuffles, simpleguitar.com, brad litton, simple guitar, blues shuffle, guitar lesson, guitar lesson for beginners, beginner guitar lesson, rhythm guitar lesson, blues shuffle guitar lesson, beginning blues guitar, rhythm guitar, blues guitar, easy blues shuffle for beginners, simple guitar brad litton, basic 12 bar blues guitar lesson, blues guitar lesson, guitar tips and tricks, guitar tutorial for beginners, how to play guitar

Id: 3gE-f1kEx9c

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 12 2021