BluesTrotter.com

Product Description
D’Addario XL Electric Guitar strings are world-renowned as “The Player’s Choice” amongst guitar players of all genres and styles. XL strings are wound with nickelplated steel and are known for their distinctive bright tone and excellent intonation.

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If you have an inclination towards playing the guitar especially the Blues Scale, you should know there are so many methods of playing them. In fact, there are hundreds of different options regarding the method of playing Blues Scale. There various variation that this style has. It is not only a traditional way of playing the guitar but the most well known one at the same time. There are various things that you need to know and follow, which would help you play not only Blues Scale but would ensure that you could play it well. Below are some tips that you to learn how to play them and play them well.

Technique of playing the Blues Scale is defiantly important to start with, but that is not the only thing, as the students misunderstand. We tend to learn something and try to practice it to excel. However, this is music. This doesn’t work that way. To be the best with the Blues Scale of the guitar you must first learn the basic technique and don’t rush to excel in the same. When you would use your heart and soul, the best blues sound would start to flow.  Learning and practicing only the technique would do no good. It is important to touch and feel the emotion captured in a song and later concentrate of the technique. Simple rule is that if the emotional temperament of the song is captured half the battle is won. Speed would follow later.

Get comfortable with the rhythm of the blues and then it would be easier for you to progress on the learning path. “Swung” is the most known feel. The straight 4/4 timing is used for most of the blues and other genres of music; it is easy on ear & easy to play as well. Get serene with this first to progress better in the field of learning blues scale.

Be familiar with the fret-bard of the guitar. Licks should be learned with all its different variation possible, this being the soul of the Blues Scale. Start with the licks that you are comfortable with and progress to the more challenging once later. Experiment with the licks that you know, this would not only help you to get used to the various neck position but also help to have different keys.

Slide guitar would help you stand out from the rest of the crowd that plays blues. This is simply because that the use of slide guitar is itself an art. It is difficult and that is why many people don’t attempt that. Having said that blues would sound distinguished if played on this one. Master the art of playing the slide guitar and try the blues on it – fame would follow.

The Blues Scale is the best to learn, while learning it you should go through it without leaving a stone unturned. The scale is used in many different kind of music; hence, learning it would be quite beneficial.

It is not that easy to pull out a definition of blues. You can tell that Robert Johnsons’ Rambling on My Mind or B.B. King’s Everyday I Have the Blues is definitely blues, but what about van Halen, Al Di Meola or Pavarotti’s songs?

Of course, you could define the blues by the call-response structure, the dominant 7th chords, the shuffle rhythm, the I-IV-V progression and things like these, but the most complete definition is one that Eric Clapton himself gave to blues music in an interview in 1998:

My definition of Blues is that it’s a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it’s the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don’t do it. (Eric Clapton, 1998)

The Blues History

There are many books on the history of blues. It was born in the 20th century’s Mississippi Delta in the U.S., short after the Civil War. This music style was played by slaves and white people referred to it as sorrow songs, plantation songs or workaday songs. The term blues was used for the first time around 1925.

It is believed that the band leader William Christopher Handy was the one to write the first blues songs in 1909, which was later printed and documented. The song was initially called Memphis Blues and got the name of Mister Crump later. He got his inspiration from a blues song he heard in the Mississippi railway station six years earlier. W.C. Handy wrote other songs too, such as Beale Street Blues or St. Louis Blues and nowadays there’s a blues award named after him – the W.C. Handy Award.

What Do You Need To Learn To Play Blues Guitar?

In order to learn to play blues guitar, there are a few things you need. First of all, you need to own an electric or acoustic guitar with strings made from other than nylon in standard tuning. You also need to know how to read tablature, as well as have some basic guitar knowledge and know how to play a few chords.

You also need some Eric Clapton CDs with blues classics, such as Blues Breakers, From the Cradle or Eric Clapton Unplugged and a good CD player with an auto-repeat shuffle. There’s also a plug-in for Winamp you can use to slow down music. A small chord book you can find in any guitar shop is also handy. But most importantly, in order to learn to play blues guitar, you need some good ears.

If you already have some basic guitar knowledge, you can learn to play blues guitar on your own, with the aid of a simple chord book. However, finding a blues guitar teacher who is willing to help you learn to play blues guitar in your area is definitely a good thing. If you have the time and money to take up private lessons, this will probably help improving your guitar playing skills.