How to Play a Shuffle Beat on Guitar

Series Summary

The instrumental and vocal style of music commonly known as 'the blues' is actually derived from a repetitive 12 bar pattern and the blue notes. It was born in the slave camps of the United States in the form of hymnals, gospel tunes and spirituals, and evolved into a highly influential genre that has inspired everything from jazz to rock 'n roll to hip hop. Blues guitar is one of the purest forms of the genre, since slaves were typically allowed to have guitars or homemade banjos. The beginnings of blues music are steeped in tradition and at their purest when combined with stringed instruments.

In this free video clip series our expert, Rick Tobey, will introduce you to blues guitar by demonstrating commonly used scales, box patterns, bends techniques, shuffle patterns, chord progressions and other great tips for paying rhythm blues guitar. Tips on blues guitar solos are also included so if you want to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughn all you need to do is watch these videos 19 hours a day every day for the next 12 years and you'll be flyin on that fret board!

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Rick Tobey on behalf of Expert Village. This is blues progression part two. Now in blues guitar playing in blues songs there are different kinds of beats, they have different accents. In this section we are going to be learning shuffle beats. Shuffle beats is kind of bouncy kind of thing it kind of goes like this. (playing guitar) So you can see how it's kind of bouncy and of course it's bar chords that would be kind of like this way. (playing guitar) In the next few lessons I will demonstrate how to play that, twelve bars blues in A in the shuffle beat."