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I've been playing on and off for nearly 30 odd years. When I play the blues, it's usually in a generic, plodding, style. I've never really learnt to play it properly and well and my vocab is limited. I tend to play the same licks over and over again. It's easy enough to come up with a generic 12 bar thing with some pentatonic noodling, but there are certain riffs and licks which just elevate the blues above this, which is what I want to achieve.
I've recently began learning songs from the Beano album and playing a long to Freddie King. Learning Hideaway, well the first turnaround as Clapton and Freddie play it in on the first 12 bars is the kind of awesome sounding lick I'm talking about, took some practice but now I can play it with ease. And the mixing of major and minor. I've dabbled with a bit of fingerstyle on the acoustic, it would take a hell of a lot of practice to get the bass lines with the thumb and higher strings co-ordinated, but it I'd love to be able to play like that.
I'm going to keep going with Freddie and the Beano album, but wanted to ask for tips on how you improved and elevated your blues playing above bog standard shuffles, or suggest songs/guitarists to study, or youtube lessons?
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Tension can be built in many ways. Using quick flurries of notes is common. Repetition is common too. If you think that’s beginners stuff that watch Clapton in Party at the Palace where he plays most of a chorus on one note, building tension by repetition.
So rather than dive into a rabbit hole of copying licks and reading theory I’d advise putting yourself in the position of a plantation worker, brought up on songs which use African scales, and trying to learn how to play something on a western scale guitar. Learn the resolution notes, then finding things which sound good to your ear which lead to them. Whatever you do leave the music space to breathe.
There is a shed load of tutorial stuff out there. Duke Robillard does the T Bone Walker and three Kings stuff with a lot of understanding; Andy Aledort worked for Guitar World and does a variety of stuff but is tops for that sixties blues boom type stuff, Keith Wyatt has decades of teaching blues guitar. Obviously there are younger/ hipper players that have tutorial stuff but for going back to basics the more established tutors might be better.
The book @Vibetronic sent me, Blues Guitar Soloing by Keith Wyatt, is exactly what I needed for my intermediate level. It starts with basic techniques. I mean take the finger roll, something I do but have never really heard it called that or realised or thought about it. Where I go wrong is learning songs and licks without fully understanding the techniques behind them. So really it’s just a superficial copy of it. Kind of like reading out a poem without understanding it. I’ve got to understand and work on the basic techniques that are the foundations of playing better.
Don't be put off. I'm a mediocre guitarist at best. Over the last three years I've spent a fair amount of time on acoustic fingerstyle. There are all kinds of "exercises" to develop thumb independence but I've found just learning songs works best.
Try something like Baby Please Don't Go or Good Morning Blues, both are easy songs and ideal for practising a monotonic bass and getting the thumb coordinated.
I actually find alternating bass easier than monotonic, my thumb sort of does it naturally.
Blues Guitar Institute & Daddystovepipe both have some free stuff on YouTube.
First is ear training. Can you sing a line and then play it on your guitar? All the great blues players were/are singing with their guitars....led by what they’re hearing in their heads, not the patterns their fingers are used to. It’s not that hard to develop with practice.
Second, don’t try to boil the ocean. Blues as a genre is a patchwork quilt of generally quite narrow individual contributions. The blues player who channels 13 different influences in a single 12 bar solo is a pretty recent phenomenon and the ones who do it well are in a tiny minority, yet they’re the ones we all try and ape. Find a few things you like and milk them for all they are worth. That’s what the architects of the genre did. When you can do those few things in your sleep, add more but don’t feel like you have to cover a huge range to be doing justice to “playing the blues”.
Been going through the Keith Wyatt acoustic blues book today, and found a YouTube lesson of him following the book exactly. Really good back to basics stuff, I needed to go back to lay some more solid foundations. And been playing along to Jimmy Reed, basic but so effective.
Feeling quite enthused now
Other things I've done in the past - every time you learn a new lick - try and play it everywhere on the neck. This will help you make all pentatonic positions usable and allow you to stitch together ideas all across the fretboard.
Also, pay particular attention to articulation, is the note picked/hammered/slid up to/bent? Playing around with those will give you more variety in sound and allow you to recycle things.
I think another important thing is to play what is in your head and not in your fingers .. so playing what you sing...learning runs and licks and stuff is ok but iff you try and fit them into anything they don't really work..it like a cut and paste . But the same runs iff you work on them using different phrasing ..timing..ect ..really take them apart so you Know the run and don't just play it
The reason someone like Clapton or SRV's classics are classics is partly because they're played well with a good tone and passion etc etc but ultimately it's because they're memorable tunes. You can recall/sing/hum/whistle/scat something like Texas Flood, Lenny, or Crossroads. Even the solos are super-melodic and full of hooks - not just a bunch of licks strung together. And it's why I find most modern blues guys boring, because they can play with all the fire in the world, but not playing anything new and interesting. It's also what separates Mayer from everyone else - Continuum and Try are simply jam packed with TUNES. You can play 4 notes of Slow Dancing.. or Vultures and everyone on the planet knows what song it is. That's hugely powerful.
I have been playing The Beano album badly for 30 odd years...time to see if i can locate that Keith Wyatt book.
Justin guitars also has some good stuff on arpeggios in the blues which may be worth checking out.
Cheers
Also, in case it's of use to anyone, there's a string bending lesson the Justin guitar site- I'd skipped over it as thought it was 'too basic' - but his explanation of technique has corrected 30 years worth of dodgy string bending in a matter of minutes. Worth a look.