Solo Acoustic Blues Guitar Lesson - Play the blues by yourself on guitar - Blues Guitar Lesson EP315

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hi this is Brian with active melody comm well in this week's guitar lesson we're going to take a look at a classic blues composition this is just a 1 for 5 straight up blues that you can play on an acoustic or electric guitar it's full of fill licks that you can apply to other things so not only are you learning this composition but you're gonna learn these licks in context so that when you're at your next blues jam are you playing along with your favorite song whatever you can take these licks and start to apply them to that so we're gonna break this down over the course of two videos in this video we'll take a look at the first half if you like to watch the second half and get the tab PDF file and the interactive tab viewer and all of the great things that come with Premium Membership you can get those things by going to active melody com go to the weekly lessons page and do a search for EP three one five all right so this blues composition is very predictable in terms of format it's a 12 bar blues we're playing this in the key of e so the chords we're going to be playing over are an E and a and a B chord so that's your one four five chord format and when I'm writing a blues composition like this you don't have anything you have a complete blank slate so you don't have any sort of jam track to kick it off with or anything to play over so you have to lay the foundation for something like this and I always find myself kind of going back to the same format and that is to play some kind of a little foundation that's rhythmic and then I start to stray from that as we get into the song a little bit start throwing in some fill licks and things that you can do down the road because you've established a foundation so for example this song starts off with and you can see I played through it twice they're the same lick both times and that's to establish that foundation so as a listener you already kind of know what's up you can already start to tap your foot or clap along or whatever you can start to feel it a little bit if I started with a lick right away it would have no foundation and it wouldn't really make sense so as we get into this lesson you're going to learn these licks and these licks are going to be awesome because you can apply them to other things not just this composition but anything you're playing anytime you're playing something in the key of E you can use these licks but anyway I'm getting ahead of myself so this first part sounds like this it has two parts that's part one that's the call and then the response sounds like that we go back and forth between the call and the response so let's start by learning the call and so what I'm doing for that is I'm playing the open sixth string the low six train the e low E string rather and then I've got my middle finger on the third fret sixth string and I'd do a slight Bend when I play that and then second fret fourth string it's with my index finger and that's another a note so you've got an e note and an e note or an octave apart now once I play that one I come back down to the sixth string and play that open E again the low E so all together the call goes right and you can see I'm giving it some vibrato there when I'm playing that a note you don't have to do that but I just find it gives it kind of a different feel a little more so soul I guess now the response goes like this so that's the open sixth string then I use my middle finger you could use whatever finger works best for you here but that's the second fret barring the first four strings and just plain that a chord we go back to the open sixth ring and then we play that and that's just the E chord and I'm hammering on with my index finger to the first fret third string so the response then goes like this let me do that slowly [Music] so when we put the two pieces together now we have the riff that is used over and over again sort of the foundation of this song so it sounds like this now the third time too so that's the first time first two times through the third time through I want so you can see that I strayed from the path just a little bit but that's okay I can do that now I've already laid a foundation just by playing through that one little lick two times it's already started to form into a song so now I can throw in some little fill legs and this is where it starts to become fun because now I can improvise I can start playing some blues licks in the key of E and so this first leg it's a great lick you can use this in anything not just this composition remember that but I'm starting on the third fret second string with my middle finger I'm sliding up to the fifth fret second string this is just pattern two of the minor pentatonic scale for e but I'm sliding up and while I do that I'm also hitting the open one string which is the E string so you playing those two strings together then I've got my middle finger on the fourth fret third string and I do a quick slide down to the second fret now now I use my middle finger for both of them I just find that to be easier it's probably not good form there's probably a better way to do it maybe starting with your ring finger so I'll leave that up to you which fingers you want to use but that's that's what I'm doing now once I'm down here open third string and then middle finger goes down on the second fret fourth string and you can see what I've done is I've gone from pattern two down to pattern one of the minor pentatonic scale for egan that's all that lick is but what makes it unique to the key of E is this open one string that you couldn't do that in an if you're playing something in a different key but since we're playing in the key of E you've got the e note that's there anyway so it sounds really good to me to play those two notes together like that you hear that in blues all the time [Music] you know taking advantage of those open strings all right let's back it up from the beginning so you can see after I played the lid I came back down and did the response so back down to the open sixth string hit it twice you're a and then there's the rest of the response now that the fourth time through I threw in another leg so I play and I do this just to give you options I want you to have all these options and just start opening your mind as to how this stuff works once you realize that you can just improvise you could play any licks you want in those spots and it's gonna sound good then you can take a composition like this and totally make it your own you could jump on it for four hours as long as you want okay so this lick is another classic e blues lick kind of a Delta blues thing but what I'm doing for that is ring fingers on the third fret first string and then my index fingers on the second fret second string and when I play that I push it a little bit sharp not too sharp not too far just enough to give it some kind of twang and then I played the open one string second fret second string back to the open one string so all together make sure you let that one string ring out so that you can work in the response to it so altogether and any of these licks that are giving you trouble or you know you find that you're hanging up on them just repeat them over and over again just like that you could over and over again until it starts to become fluid and once it becomes fluid like that and you can play it in time that means you've got it so let me back up now and I'll play all the way up to where we are in the song it's those it's that same riff that was played four times the last two times have the different lick thrown in so here it is from the beginning [Music] now we go to the four corner [Music] same kind of thing same riff as happening but now we're playing it in a different / a different chord we're playing over over the a chord so I'm gonna play the start on the fifth string which is your a note now I'm sliding this has played a little different than the bend that I did on the third fret for the e so I'm sliding on my ring finger from the second fret up to the fourth fret on the 5th string index finger goes down on the second fret third string so you can see what I've done here is the same thing so now I have an octave of A's so you have your a and your a we go back play that twice back to the open fifth string then I came up here with so this is a classic lick that you've got to learn because any time I'm playing rhythm leads I use this all the time when I'm playing in the key of a and so what I'm doing is I'm letting that open fifth string ring out but I've got my ring finger barring on the seventh fret the first four strings so that I can play five the open five four three and two then I come down and I bar the first four strings on the fifth fret but I do a hammer onto the sixth fret third string so it sounds like that and the reason I say that that's so important and I use it all the time is because it's got that open a string that's ringing out so if you're playing some kind of a rhythm you can come up here and grab that little seventh fret to the fifth fret and it's just a nice little addition to your rhythm it also works in your lead playing as well but I use that all the time when I'm playing rhythm in a so that's what that sounds like so let's back up from the beginning of the a part then I just played through it twice like that and then we go back to the one chord so there's the one chord to the four chord now we're back to the one for same thing and then threw in another little blues lake now this is a lick I use all the time and it uses hybrid picking don't let that scare you it's easy to do we're gonna pick on the third string while using our ring finger to pluck on the first string so you got so what I'm doing there with my middle fingers I'm sliding from the second fret third string up to the fourth fret on the third string then back to the second fret then my index finger goes down on the first fret third string middle finger goes down the second fret fourth string all together because what I'm doing there is I'm doing a pull-off and a hammer on with my middle finger it's kind of subtle but you can hear it and then while that note rings out I go ahead and hit the open six string all right so let's back up from the beginning and play us up to that point so we have 1 & 2 & 3 [Music] so you can see after huh go back to the response and then we come to the five core the beadboard what I'm playing over that goes and this lick it's a classic like I love this because what I'm doing is I'm actually changing the key to match that chord just in that one spot so everything else has been just playing in the key of e we've been playing in the key of the song but this is something that I see a lot of blues guys doing on the five chord they'll switch and play like the minor pentatonic scale of the five chord so in this case I'm playing the B minor pentatonic scale just over that one four and so this lick is really coming out of pattern four of the minor pentatonic skill for B so if B if your one chord are your your pattern one rather would be up here so pattern four is down here so that's why that lick stands out like that it's because you're changing the key at that one point and the way that I'm playing that as I've got my middle finger on the third fret second string now when I play that I push it a little bit sharp index finger goes down on the second fret first string we go back to that first note then ring finger goes down on the fourth fret third string so you can see it's a little stair step now while that note rings out I reach down here and grab the second fret fifth string that's the B note that's played an octave lower than that so that's a B note and then that Sabina so that's your leg and then what I did was I came up here and went and played that response to that now that should look familiar and that's because it's exactly the same thing we did over the a chord remember today when I showed you how to do that well this is the same thing we're just playing it over the B chord the difference is we don't have that open fifth string so we can't play that and so what I'm doing to play that is I've got my ring finger barring the first four strings on the ninth fret I played four three and two came back to the fourth string and did then hammer on so in this case would be barring the first four strings and the seventh fret doing a hammer on to the eighth fret third string so so that whole B chord part or the five chord goes and then we go back to the forecourt just just your standard 12-bar blues format so you get the five four to the four chord and then we go back to the one chord there's your four chord and then to get back to the one chord I wanted to throw in kind of a real cool Delta blues leg I love that and what I'm doing for that leg is kind of the same thing actually the same thing that we did over the five but now we're doing it back in the key of E so now I'm back in the e-minor pentatonic scale pattern for so I'm starting here on the ninth fret first string and actually this note throws it because that note is not in the minor pentatonic scale if I wanted to play proper minor pentatonic scale I'd come up to the tenth fret but I'm using this note instead and that's in the major pentatonic scale free I don't want to get too far off the course but I just wanted to point that out for those of you that are trying to understand why this is working this one this notes in the major pentatonic scale so ninth fret first string seventh fret first string 8th fret second string and then ring finger goes down the ninth fret third string now when I play that eighth fret second string I push that one a little bit sharp now I can come down and hit the open six string and then we go right back into the foundation and that's the first time through now that's really all there is to this first time through now the second time through we're gonna build on that and I'm gonna show you some more licks that you can use and how you can even stray further from the path because you've established the whole foundation but let me back up and play through this one more time so that you have this I'll play through it slowly and then I'll see you in part two for the rest of this and remember if you're a premium member not only do you get access to the part two video but you have the on-screen tab viewer which is interactive you can slow down parts and all of that and you can also print off the tab PDF file alright so let's back up from the beginning we have 1 & 2 & 3 [Music] you you

Channel: Active Melody

Views: 407,801

Keywords: acoustic blues guitar lesson, learn acoustic blues guitar, how to play acoustic blues guitar, how to play acoustic guitar, blues guitar lesson, blues guitar tutorial, learn blues guitar, blues guitar on acoustic, play guitar by yourself, blues guitar by yourself, blues guitar education, guitar education, guitar lesson, guitar lessons, online blues guitar lesson, music education

Id: AqHpjGPNOKg

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019