The Blues Guitar

  This is my version of the old Mississippi Fred McDowell song You Gotta Move. The song has been covered many times by artists such as the Rolling Stones, with most of these covers being quite faithful to the original. In this version, I try to stay close to the Fred McDowell original recording. You Gotta Move is a slide guitar tune played in 12/8 time on a guitar tuned to Open D. I play it using my fingers and would recommend you do the same as I find it easier to access all the notes. However it could be played with a pick if you wanted. The song is quite straightforward to play as it mostly uses single notes at once, and has a moderate tempo. It follow a very repetitive pattern and, apart from one section, the song is just a repetition of the first section / verse. Below is the tab in various formats and also some tips to help you play it. You Gotta Move Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT Playing Advice Sliding About - This piece of music uses a slide to play the majority of t...

    Fingerstyle blues is commonly played in the key of E. This is not surprising as a guitar in standard tuning is loosely tuned to the key of E, so it is a popular key for much guitar music. In this post, and the accompanying video, I will look at some of the most common ways to play blues music in this key. I will have a look at common chords used and how they fit into a 12 bar blues sequence, a standard picking pattern in this key, and also look at how you can incorporate your own melody in this key. Chords Blues music tends to use 3 chords and these are at scale degrees I, IV, V7. In the key of E, this gives you the chords E, A and B7. The A chord is played as an A Major, but is also often played as A7 as well. These 3 chords are very common in all types of music, especially blues. Fitting them into a 12 bar blues Taking these 3 chords, they can be fitted into a 12 bar blues sequence and you can hear the bluesy sound that they give. Here is a common 12 bar blues sequence ...