Tips on Playing Blues Chords

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

"RICK TOBEY: I'm Rick Tobey and in this series, we will be learning how to play blues progressions and a blues song on behalf of Expert Village. Now, in this section, we're going to learn how to play a blues song, the song "Little Red Rooster" and this song involves three chords. We're playing it in the key of E, there's an E7 chord, an A, A7 or just an A and we'll learn different variations of how to play that chord. And then there's a B7 and there again, we'll learn different variations and these are all what we call open chords. And then later on in this series, we'll learn how to play some barre chords but basically, the blues progression generally involves three chords; what is called the I chord, the IV chord and the V chord and these are based on the notes of the scale. The first note in the scale is E, the fourth note in the scale is A and the fifth note in the scale is B, so now we'll learn each chord individually and then put them together and play the song."