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The blues is a form of music that can be vocal, instrumental (blues guitar) or both. It uses the ‘blue’ notes which are based on a ‘minor pentatonic’ scale most of the time, otherwise known as the blues scale.

Blues music was derived from the African-American communities in the U.S. out of work songs, spiritual songs, field hollers, chants, shouts and simple ballads that rhymed. A lot of aspects of the blues are indicitive of African influence.

The call-and-response aspect of the music came directly from African roots and there were a lot of lines that would get repeated twice or more. This later evolved into a line repeating twice and then on the third time around there would be an ‘answer line’. You can still find these characteristics of early blues in modern day music, especially hip-hop.

The term ‘The Blues’ refers to the ‘blue devils’ which means down spirits or sadness.

The blues guitar plays a heavy role in blues music as well as modern music. It has influenced Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Bluegrass and even Rock N’ Roll tremendously.

The original blues of the early 1900′s, otherwise known as “poor man’s blues” was normally associated with hard times, oppression from white folk, cruelty of the police, gambling, economic depression, floods, magic, farming and dry periods. This music was fueled by a lot of heartache and depression. Usually a lost loved one or an overall harsh environment inspired the lyrics and the tone of the blues guitar.

After the world war, you began to see blues songs that were about relationships and sex. Also, humor was added to the mix. Here is a funny example:

“That must be your woman, cause mine don’t look like that…

I said That must be your woman, cause mine don’t look like that…

Have you seen my baby? She’s so big and fat…”

The blues guitar style emerged from the American South’s instruments of the time which were the banjo and the Diddley Bow. This was a home made one stringed instrument that was popular in the early 20th century. Figures such as Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House and Blind Willie McTell were a part of the delta blues style which used a lot of finger picking techniques and slide guitar innovations.

Eventually, after WWII ‘electric blues’ became increasingly popular where the blues guitar was played on electric guitars as were the bass guitars. This was most prevalent in the Chicago area.

Blues music today has become a multi-cultural genre with artists playing Blues in every corner of the world. Texas-born Stevie Ray Vaughan set the music world on fire with his modern combination of Blues and Rock until his untimely death in 1990. Other modern Blues artists making a mark are: Shemekia Copeland, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Cray, Taj Mahal, Charlie Musselwhite, and the North Mississippi Allstars .

The history of blues guitar and poor man’s blues is rich with culture and stories of good times and bad. I could go on for days about the history of the blues guitar but let’s make this part 1 so you don’t fall asleep on me!

In the history of the guitar blues there have been some great players and fortunately many of those great players are still with us today. Whether you prefer smooth guitar blues or whether you like to have your guitar blues smash you in the face there have been players to oblige you and to entertain you for over a century now. Here is a quick look at some guitar blues players that have made an impact.

BB King

BB King has been playing guitar blues for over 60 years and is one of the standards that people use when they talk about guitar blues players. He has recorded with such great bands as U2 and is best known for his trademark hollow body electric guitar he calls Lucille. He was originally called the Beale Street Blues Boy but before his first record came out the record company shortened it to BB and used his real last name of King to create the name BB King. In over 60 years BB King has played his smooth style of blues all over the world.

Eric Clapton

Known simply as “Slow Hand”, Eric Clapton is a self taught guitar prodigy who got his start in the famous 1960′s hard rock blues band Cream. After Cream disbanded he went on to form such acts as Derrick And The Dominoes but Clapton was always displaying his trademark slow hand smooth guitar blues style somewhere in the world. Recently Cream was reunited for a few shows and it is unknown whether or not they will stay together but even without a reunited Cream Eric Clapton has still left his mark as one of the greatest guitar blues players ever.

Robert Johnson

It is difficult to talk about guitar blues players without talking about the man that greats such as Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters cite as one of their prime influences. Robert Johnson was born in 1911 and died in 1938 but in between there he recorded and released at least a half dozen or more records that survive today as an example of the talent and vision that Johnson had. He lived the blues and, by some accounts, died because of the blues and Robert Johnson is the place where most blues is said to have come from.

Jimi Hendrix

For some reason Jimi Hendrix is never given his due as the master guitar blues player that he was because many people cannot see past his use of sound and energy on the electric guitar. But everything Jimi did was based in the blues and many of his more popular songs are simply blues songs done Jimi’s way and there is nothing wrong with that.

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Learning how to play blues on the guitar is often made too complex by guitarists trying to explain their approach to the blues to newbie guitar players. To learn how to play blues guitar is actually quite simple. Some bands have devised complicated arrangements of blues songs, others prefer to stay with the fairly simple way of presenting blues songs. To add to the mix there are also different kinds of blues coming from different parts of America.

Let’s look at a blues guitar chord progression. It’s a very common progression called the I IV V. The Roman numerals represent the chords of whatever key you are playing in. So if you are playing in the key of A you would be using the chords A, D and E. Just so you understand the process here, if you take the key as a simple octave with the root note, or first note as A, the fourth (IV) note will be D and the fifth note (V) will be E. In blues the seventh chords are used for the IV and V chords, so the chords you will be using will be A, D7 and E7. If you want to play in the key of E your chords will be E A7 and B7.

Next you will need a song to learn how to play blues on the guitar. The twelve bar blues is the most popular and most easily recognized form of blues song and it looks like:

I I I I      IV IV I I     V IV I I/V

which is just showing you how the music is divided up with the first four bars using the I chord, and so on. The I/V is where you split the last bar into two to serve as an introduction to the next verse.

You need to get the feel of the blues, so even if your chord changes are not up to scratch yet, you can still play the bass notes along with a song or a backing track, so if you are in the key of A you just play the notes: four bars of A, two bars of D, two bars of A, one bar of E, one bar of D, one bar of A and the final bar has two beats of A and two beats of E.

Now you can see why learning how to play blues on the guitar can get a little complicated in the explaining, but you will immediately see the simplicity as you learn some songs.

If you’re in the market for a great way to spend a day, check out your local birding festivals. Most states have several fairs and festivals going on during the year, and they are an excellent way to get outside, learn something new, make new friends and have fun.

Birding festivals last from a simple one day event to a full month of outings, activities and lectures. The most common are over a weekend, and can range from small local events at a nearby park, to large-scale events that bring visitors from all over the globe, with events spread throughout an entire region. Depending on the specific event, you will have the opportunity to hear knowledgeable speakers, observe live birds up close, take guided walks, get pointers on better wildlife photography, sharpen your identification skills, share experiences with like-minded folks, and even take more exotic outings, such as birding by boat or on horseback. Often there are artists, vendors, children’s activities, and the like.

Many birding festivals center on a specific event taking place in the local area, migration being a particular favorite. Another popular theme is the celebration of specific species found only locally, or perhaps in a particular abundance, such as warblers, shorebirds, cranes or hawks. Many blend other interests with birding, such as butterflies, flowers or even music.

Here is a sampling of some of the larger events that take place each spring and summer:

Birds, Blossoms & Blues Festival, Norfolk, Virginia. Field trips, walking tours, boat tours, plant sales, blues concerts, family festival.

Florida’s First Coast Birding and Nature Festival, St. Augustine, Florida. Kayaking, walking tours, photography expeditions. Learn about outdoor photography, birding, wildlife, butterflies, and much more.

Spring Wings Bird Festival, Fallon, Nevada. Field trips, including a birding by horseback safari, airboat tour, ranch tour, photography contest, and much more.

Great River Birding and Nature Festival, Lake City, Minnesota. 3 days of birding and nature events held throughout the Mississippi River Valley of Southeast Minnesota and Southwest Wisconsin around Lake Pepin. Birding by motorboat, mini-railcar, hikes along shorelines, forests, bluff tops, lectures, and more.

Horicon Marsh Bird Festival, Wisconsin. Bird banding, birding by pontoon, hikes, talks, and the “big sit”, where participants try to observe as many species as possible from a 17-foot observatory platform from midnight Friday till dark on Saturday.

Festival of Birds, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Over 170 species seen last year, field trips, frog/toad outing, workshops, exhibitors.

Cape May Spring Weekend, New Jersey. 200+ bird species, field trips, workshops, boat trips and more at the migration mainline capital of North America.

Mountain Lake Migratory Bird Festival, Pembroke, Virginia. Visit the beautiful Mountain Lake Hotel, with 2600 acres of pristine woodlands to take part in dozens of activities – field trips, workshops, fun for the kids.

Kirtland’s Warbler Festival, Roscommon, Michigan. Guided tours to see the Kirtland’s Warbler, nature presentations, crafts, kids’ activities, photography and more.

Bar Harbor Warblers & Wildflowers, Bar Harbor, Maine. Bird walks, peregrine watches, boat rides, garden and forest tours, art exhibits.

Potholes and Prairie Birding Festival, Jamestown, North Dakota. Guided tours, workshop, wonderful prairie birding.

The Feliciana Hummingbird Celebration highlights hummingbirds in the St. Francisville area of Louisiana, including banding and workshops on how to build a hummingbird habitat in your garden.

Southwest Wings. Arizona’s longest running birding festival celebrates its 15th year in Bisbee. Natural history tours, birds and butterfly tours, exhibits and programs.

You can find these birding festivals and fairs by checking birding magazines such as “Birders World” and “Audubon”, by contacting your local Audubon chapter, and by searching the Internet, but the quickest way to get a comprehensive list is by scanning the Birding Event Calendar at www.BirdingResources.com.

Join the flock at your local birding festival, or migrate to a more distant event. Either choice promises a great day of birding!

Learning to play blues guitar should not be boring or mind-numbing, but like all courses of music study, blues guitar lessons contain new ideas, the language of music and a whole new repertoire of physical movements to come to terms with.

In the early twentieth century blues guitar lessons were taken from a friend or relative, maybe using a borrowed guitar, or maybe using a single string on a broomstick. These lessons had no theory and paid no attention to how you sit or stand while you play the guitar, or whether prolonged guitar practice was going to damage your back or your hands.

These days you can get blues guitar lessons online which benefit from the musical knowledge and experience musicians have accumulated over nearly a hundred years. If you want to learn blues guitar you don’t need to be steeped in the traditions and folklore of the people of your region. You just need to download lyrics and tabs for blues songs and learn to play them on an acoustic or electric guitar.

Blues guitar lessons online will not only teach you how to play the blues but also how to read guitar tabs and chord charts, how to adjust your tone control and pickups to get you sounding like a real blues guitar player, and basic stuff like how to keep your guitar in tune.

If you enjoy listening to blues music, but do not know much about the guitar, a typical course of online guitar lessons would make sure you knew the basics of handling and maintaining your instrument before teaching you songs in your favorite genre. Before you start learning to play blues songs and guitar solos, you would be taught some strumming patterns, how to hold the pick, and perhaps a finger picking pattern or two.

Unlike the early blues songs which would have utilized open chords, modern blues numbers make use of barre chords, power chords and exotic scales and modes. Also the sophisticated playing techniques developed over the past fifty years, like string bending, trills and slides have a big role in blues music.

Today’s musical environment also produces guitar players who have devoted themselves specifically to becoming music educators, so if you take blues guitar lessons online you won’t be getting a guy who spent a few years in a garage band and then branched out into teaching, you will be learning from a guitarist who is also a composer and seasoned professional musician who has learnt how to pass musical know-how onto students.

The music from Memphis during the early part of the 20th century was unlike anything the country had ever heard before. It was called The Blues, and the music from Memphis soon took the entire country by storm without many people knowing it. The people who created the music from Memphis like W.C. Handy, Willie Nix, Furry Lewis, Frank Stokes, Robert Wilkins, Big Mama Thornton, Bobby Sowell, Rosco Gordon, Howlin Wolf, Memphis Minnie, Junior Parker, Ida Cox and Sleepy John Estes all gained a significant amount of fame because of their talents.

It should be clear by now that my blues are built around or suggested by, rather than constructed of, the snatches, phrases, cries and idioms such as I have illustrated, wrote W.C. Handy in his autobiography. The genre got so famous, that whenever somebody would mention music from Memphis, everyone automatically assumed that the other parties were talking about the blues sung by Handy and his companions.

In fact, Handy had infiltrated the music from Memphis scene so deeply that he even wrote the campaign song for the successful mayoral candidate Mr. Crump. Although it was not the first blues song ever published, it was an important hit that was influenced by the blues sound and helped transform music from Memphis as a whole.

Before World War II, most of the music from Memphis was made with relatively inexpensive instruments. Sure, there were always the standard instruments like banjos, mandolins, violins and guitars, but music from Memphis was unique in that the musicians also utilized odd items like jugs to make new sounds.

Jug bands accounted for a lot of the music from Memphis. For example, the Memphis Jug Band and Gus Cannons Jug Stompers were some of the more popular acts of Beale Street. Besides household jugs, there were also washboards, Jews harps and kazoos that were used to make music from Memphis.

After World War II, music from Memphis took on a much different sound. Acts like B.B. King came in to the picture with their electric instruments and made the blues sound a little more sophisticated. This new music from Memphis was highly sought after by the people at Sun Records, and many of the artists began to cut albums with Sun. Because of the distribution opportunities that a deal with Sun Records came with, people all over the country were able to hear music from Memphis.

Known as the Windy City, there is usually something always going on in Chicago especially in the spring and summer months. Some of the events that you will want to attend when you visit Chicago include the following.

The Oak Street Beach Summer Festival

The Oak Street Beach Summer Festival has been taking place on Oak Street Beach, just off of Lake Shore Drive, for the past 20 years. This event includes out door “beach” music, volleyball tournaments and food on Oak Street Beach during the last weekend of June of each year. Chicago weather can be very cool throughout most of the year and the summer really gets kicked off during the Oak Street Beach Summer Festival that welcomes summer in.

Venetian Night

The third Saturday in July is reserved for Venetian Night in Chicago. All of the boats in the Lake Michigan Harbor are lit up and sail along the lake front, making a spectacular display. Venetian Night begins in the evening and has been taking place in the city for the past 30 years. At the end of the celebration, there are fireworks.

Lincoln Park Book Fair

The used book fair in Lincoln Park is considered to be one of the biggest book fairs in the country. The Lincoln Park area of Chicago hosts this annual book fair during the last weekend in July of each year. Those who collect rare books or simply love to read, will visit Chicago for this unique event. The Lincoln Park book fair takes place along several blocks in Lincoln Park, including Oak Street.

Greek Festival

The Greek Town area of Chicago is located on Halsted Street between Monroe and Madison Streets in the city of Chicago. The annual Greek Town Festival is a combination of food, music and dancing, all outdoors. Halsted Street is blocked off and the entire block is abuzz with activity and music that takes place the first weekend of August in Chicago.

Blues Festival

Also occurring the first weekend of August in Chicago is the Blues Festival. This is an annual event that takes place in Grant Park and features live Blues acts. Chicago is a town known for music and you can hear some of the best Blues music when you attend the annual Blues Festival in Grant Park.

Taste Of Chicago

The Taste of Chicago takes place every Labor Day weekend in Grant Park, which is one of the larger parks in the city of Chicago. The Taste of Chicago features foods from all of the Chicago restaurants. This event draws a large crowd and actually begins the week before Labor Day weekend and ends on Labor Day. This is an annual event that has changed venues and times throughout the years, but always draws a crowd.

South Side Irish Parade

The Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day is reserved for the South Side Irish Parade. While Chicago, like most other cities, has a St. Patrick’s Day parade where politicians march, most of the action is on Western Avenue the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day. The South Side Irish Parade has been going strong for the past 70 years and most of the local politicians will march in this parade as well. Although it is not the official St. Patrick’s Day parade, it might as well be as it draws a larger crowd than the traditional parade.

There is plenty to see and do in Chicago. This includes some first class annual events and plenty of fine shopping and dining so do come and visit!