Little Known Ways To Playing The Blues

Looking to learn to play the best licks on guitar? Well, there’s nothing better than the blues. First of all, why play blues guitar when I can play jazz? B.B. King himself said that all of them back then, the blues musicians, they were all in high school –and when a fellow starts playing jazz, then he’s in college. He said jazz was the big brother of blues. While it may be true that jazz is arguably a higher form of music than blues, it’s a historical fact that all the musical genres of the 20th century worth giving a damn about: rock, R&B, hip hop, soul, funk, metal, and yes even jazz have deep roots in the blues. The blues gave birth to all that great music, and jazz is a credit to the greatness of old blues licks and kicks.

But even something as great as jazz has its roots, it has to come from something as great if not greater, and that is the awesome blues licks that gave birth to countless other genres.

Blues has been around since the turn of the 20th century. It’s the accidental great granddaddy to a myriad of the greatest genres: rock & roll, soul, funk, tidbits of folk, even hip hop, and yes, jazz. And like jazz it is unique. It’s a sound absolutely slave to emotion -celebrating pure emotive depression.

Blues is today considered the music of intellectuals. Unknown to most, blues takes roots in recounting worker’s tales. It’s a perpetually raised fist against slavery. An echo of protest in another lost era of the last century. It is almost too awesome. The aspiring blues poet !Blues guitar licks are not easily mastered. All the greats: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens, not one of them perfected the blues overnight. Ask any professional and they all say the same thing. To give justice to playing the blues you need to keep in mind 3 things:

Technique. As with any skill, you need to know how to play the guitar. You’ll need musicality -an appreciation and fairly good execution of good music. Not just anyone can play the blues. Practice makes perfect. Licks. If technique is your ticket to playing, then a bottomless bag of tricky licks is your game plan. Blues licks are actually a sticky combination of technique and confidence. Playing the blues is a whole lot of improvisation, and a good player needs to be ready to spit out and good licks. Don’t be afraid to have some fun. Blues is about expression.

Soul. Perhaps the most important part of the process. It’s the reason the blues exist, heck, it’s why music exists. You need soul to bring out some soul in your playing. But don’t force this -it should come out naturally. Obviously, any aspiring musician needs a guitar. Acoustic will do, and so will electric -as long as you can play the blues, so can both guitar types. Listening to good blues music and trying to imitate good licks will help. But if it’s too difficult to follow the greats, blues backing tracks can be downloaded online and are great instructional tools, useful to both amateurs and pros. Finally, like any other skill, practice makes perfect. Dexterous fingers don’t happen overnight. Play until you’re tired of playing, and then to relax, play some more -that’s the blues guitar, you either love it or leave it.