The Blues Guitar

This is a short blues tune I learned many years ago. I can't remember the title of it or exactly how it was written, but this is how I have always played it. I have given it the title 'Slow Blues' to reflect it's slow tempo and laid back feel. It is a 12 bar blues played in the Key of E, and it is mostly in 4/4 time although there is one bar which is 2/4. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in standard tuning. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune. Here is the tab for the music Slow Blues Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT Playing Advice A 12 Bar that isn't quite a 12 Bar  - The tune is technically a 12 bar blues and follows the standard 12 bar blues structure and chord progression. However, not every bar of music is in 4/4 time. Bar 9 is shorter at 2/4 time and then reverts back to 4/4 time in bar 10. This shortened bar may confuse your timing when you first st...

Motherless Children is traditional blues tune and there are countless variations on it. I found this tab for it on the net and although the tab has no author, this version has been attributed to Stefan Grossman. This is my reworking of this version. The tune is a 12 bar blues but it does not follow a standard 12 bar structure, although it is very similar. It is played in the Key of D, in 4/4 time, and is played with the standard triplet feel common in so much blues music. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in Open D tuning and will require the use of a silde. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune.

This is my version of the traditional blues tune In the Evening. It is a 12 bar blues played in the Key of E, in 4/4 time. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in standard tuning. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune.

In previous posts I have been looking at Open C tuning and I now want to look at some 12 Bar Blues Shuffles in this tuning. Open C is not a commonly used tuning but because it tunes down the lower strings of the guitar, it gives these wonderful bass notes that are great for blues music. I have written 4 short 12 bar blues shuffles that demonstrate this. The video shows me playing these shuffles along with the tab, which can be downloaded below. In this post I will also give some playing advice to help you play them.

Sunflower River Blues is a fingerstyle guitar tune by John Fahey. It is not a standard 12 bar blues and does not apply the triplet feel to the playing, so it has more of a folk guitar sound rather than that of a standard blues tune. It is played in the Key of C on a guitar tuned to Open C , and is in 4/4 time. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune.

Open C is one of the less commonly used open tunings. However, it is an interesting tuning as it expands the tonal range on the guitar more than the most common tunings of standard tuning, Open G, and Open D. It is often used in blues and folk music and like all the open tunings it is well suited to fingerstyle guitar and playing with a slide. How to tune to Open C Open C tuning tunes the strings of the guitar so that when all the strings are played open it forms a C Major chord. The C Major chord is formed from the three notes which make up the C Major triad, these are the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C Major scale, which are C, E and G respectively. Thus, each of the guitar strings in open D tuning will be tuned to one of these three notes.

This is my version of the blues tune Blue Star by Jim Bachman. It is a 12 bar blues played in the Key of A, in 4/4 time. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in standard tuning. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune.

Hey Hey is a classic blues tune by Big Bill Broonzy. It is a 12 bar blues played in the Key of E in 4/4 time. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in standard tuning. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will give some advice on playing the tune.

Rock Me Babe is an old traditional blues tune. It is a standard 12 bar blues played in the Key of E in 4/4 time. It is a fingerstyle piece played on a guitar in standard tuning. Above is a video of me playing the tune along with the tab. In this post I will discuss how to play this tune. The tune is quite straightforward to play and it is a good introduction to playing fingerstyle blues in the Key of E. Here is the tab for the music Rock Me Babe Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

The 12 bar blues is one of the most commonly used chord progressions in modern music. It is not only used in blues music but also in a variety of other musical styles and has formed the basis of numerous classic songs. So let's have a look at what it consists of. The Chords and their Progression The 12 bar blues is a chord progression over 12 bars usually played in 4/4 time. The progression consists of 3 different chords with the diatonic function I, IV and V, or the Tonic, Subdominant and Dominant. The table below shows which chords are played in each of the 12 bars of the music The first line shows which diatonic function is played T=Tonic, S=Subdominant, and D=Dominant. The second shows this diatonic function in Roman Numerals. The third line shows the exact chords played in the key of D.                      BAR 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Function T T...

In this post I will look at the classic tune Vestapol. Vestapol is a country blues parlour tune played in the open D tuning . There are many variations of this tune and the one I will show you is a fairly short and basic version. Below is a video of me playing it, links to the tab, and some general playing advice.

What fingers do you use when fingerpicking on a guitar? If you are playing a standard 6 string guitar you have 6 strings to pick and 5 fingers on your picking hand, so what is the best or most efficient way to use those fingers to pick those strings? The answer to this varies depending on the type of music you are playing and your own personal playing preference. However, there are some fairly standard picking techniques which are used. To help us along it is probably easier to number the strings from 1 to 6, with 1 being the highest pitched string and 6 being the lowest. i.e string 6 lying closest to the guitar player and string 1 furthest away. This is common in most guitar tunings.

Blues music often has a distinctive feel to the rhythm. Listen to the famous piece 'Dust my Broom' by Elmore James and you can hear the bouncy, offset rhythm played by Elmore permeating the whole song. This rhythmic style predominates in most blues music and is also used in many other musical styles. So what causes the music to sound this way and how do you play it? Getting the feel for the triplets In musical notation you will usually see this symbol at the start of a piece of blues music:  Image from musescore.org