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Summary: How to play riff 4 for playing blues guitar in E; get professional tips and instruction from an expert on playing guitar and music theory in this free music lesson video.
Stephen Haendiges is a seasoned musician, guitarist, teacher, composer and performer with over 15 years of experience. Stephen has recorded and performed in top clubs all around the...read more
"The common picking technique used in Blues, as in with every other style, is muting. When playing a basic Blues rhythm, the muting effect gives it a nice little like kind of shuffle sound to it. Basically, I'm going to demonstrate for you now. When you're playing the E chord, you're basically holding your pick hand on the strings. Meaning, instead of going, you're going. You're kind of deadening it a little bit, but it gives it a nice effect for the rhythm and you've heard it a million times in different songs. Right now I'm just going to show the basic muting technique used in Blues rhythm guitar. (audio demo) What I'm doing there is showing basically just playing all down strokes which seems to be the standard accepted way of playing it and also gives it a more consistent rather than just doing an up and down stroke. Basically, when playing up to tempo you could go. (audio demo) That's essentially the muting technique used in Blues guitar playing."
eHow Article: Riff 4 for Playing Blues Guitar in E