How Can You Play Good Blues Guitar?
I'm having trouble getting the blues out of my guitar so to speak. I want to be able to play like Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jack White. I know the blues scale but for some reason it never sounds right please help! Some theory would be nice and please dont put blues comes from the soul.. Thank you
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Blues guitar is what i was taught to play. Keep it simple and practice techniques such as hammer ons, pull offs, slides, bends, and reverse bends. Just play along to backing tracks to try to improve your improvisational skills. good luck
Here are the three most useful things: practice, practice and practice.
Get these CD’s they will work wonders for your ability.
BAND IN THE POCKET #1 Blues, And #2 these are great backup tracks for guitar.
Let’s Jam! Blues & Rock Vol.3
Having these will make practice fun and productive. Do this.
Playing like SRV will take you a while.
If you’ve got the scale down and are able to move smoothly from one note to the next then it’s gonna be a matter of what you do with the notes when you get to them…are you going to hold it for some sustain..or hammer on & off it..or grab it and bend it…or whammy it..or
just move on quick right thru it…..
Also I used to form “mental boxes” of notes in my head..little mind pictures of a pattern of notes,and I can take those “boxes” to anywhere on the neck…But hey No one cannot emphasize the FACT that you are going to have to apply “feelings of emotion” into those notes….that’s what the blues is “emotion”….when you are pissed or sad or you got a story to tell…it’s gotta get to the strings…Jam on!
Blues comes from the soul……. naaaa just kidding. well actually it does but you know what i mean . i would have to say bends are the most used technique in blues songs compared to any other genres. Just jam to blues songs playing round with the blues scale, just start off jamming to standard 12 bar blues. Thats all i can say really and dont think ahead or hesitate to what notes you think you should play next, just listen to the music and try and fit the notes and rhythm to the song without thinking to hard .And start adding pull offs , slides, hammer ons… It may sound like crap for a while but eventually if you keep just playing to songs using the scales you will begin to sound better and better. Also listen to the great blues guitarist (B.B King,Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy , Muddy Waters, Albert King)and try and mimic the sounds their making.
good blues is simple but sounds really complex. if you watch stevie ray vaughn videos he isn’t playing the whole time. he will hit a chord and sit on it for a few measures and then do a few licks. he was one of the best blues guitarists to ever live and it took him his whole life to get that sound. just practice different techniques and see what you like. a good guitarists isn’t necessarily the fastest or the one that has been playing the longest, a good guitarist is a guitarist that has a full arsenal of tricks up his sleeve. try things like the whammy bar, wah wah pedals, hammer-ons and pull-offs, bends, intervals, slides, and palm mutes. those techniques will get you started on blues. the greatest thing you can do for your playing is practicing your pentatonic scales. find what key a song is in and solo to it, you will eventually get better.
You need to have a feel for music, not just knowledge. Listen to blues, get a feel for it. Get a feel for the rythm and pattern of sounds. Knowing the scales is a good beginning, though.
You have to learn the bends, prebends, pull offs, the double stops and the phrasing. You need to go the sources and listen to them repeatedly and get the riffs down. Get some Albert King CD’s.
Theory will not help you.
learn the language, assimilate all the good licks you like. eventualy you will know the language of blues..do it to it….
Yes what another answerer said, you most definitely should get your pull offs, slides and hammer ons right before expecting to be any good, they are the basis of lead blues(which jack white and stevie ray play). You could try some chord stuff first, learn some 7th chords, b7 ,g7 for example. Play around with those. Then you need to learn the scales(blues and pentatonic you already know) to know the right notes to solo, watch some lessons on youtube for things like blues shuffles, play in the key of E at first(the easiest key) it will come naturally after this, oh yeah and listen to LOTS of blues. Much of blues is just borrowing from other guitarists and inserting various riffs in songs.. Also in relation to the blues scale sounding right, you have to play in the key the song is in or the chords that are playing, e.g if a E is playing and you are playing the G blues scale, of course it will sound bad, so work out where the different keys are on the neck of your guitar. good luck
I enjoy listening to BB King mainly because he lets the guitar “breathe” after playing a riff. Of course BB doesn’t play fast and relentless like SRV does. I also like SRV “Texas Flood” is a favorite.
Like one person said “If it ain’t the truth it ain’t the blues”…Unknown.
When you learn to play like Stevie
Come to my place and teach me
i will provide refreshment.
Learn how to play the songs from the past masters. Muddy Waters, Freddie King, T-Bone Walker, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert Collins, etc. etc. etc. I will GUARANTEE that guys like SRV and JW learned this way. In fact SRV was a disciple of Albert King, and if you listen to Albert King, you WILL hear where SRV got many of his riffs from.
Another thing, don’t be like rock guitar disciples: don’t try to learn songs exactly like you hear it on the record. Blues is about feeling. Sure you can play it similar, and if it is an instrumental, you are obligated to play it close to it, but small variations are OK and it is what keeps blues fresh.
When I was younger and playing in a house band for a jam in Saint Louis, an old fellow, one of Elmore James Jr’s crew used to come down every now and then to watch (because Saint Louis guitar legend Bennie Smith was the band leader). I didn’t think he paid me much attention, but once he came up to me and said: “I see you don’t play the same song the same way every week.” And I said, “I play it close, but I play it the way I feel every week… so it probably isn’t the same… but I don’t think it’s supposed to.” He looked me in the eye and fairly powerfully said, “GOOD.” Then he walked away. Bennie overheard and just nodded to himself and smiled. Yeah!!
Mechanics and theory are important. Very important. But don’t get lost in them thinking you can find ‘blues’ by practicing techniques you read in a book. Play what you feel, and it is OK to borrow from the masters. Eventually it will evolve into your own style.