The Blues Guitar

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.