Trills, Tweedlies, and Turns, Oh My!
In today’s blues lead lesson we’re going to talk about something called “ornaments,” in the classical world… And while this ain’t classical music by any means, these ornaments are still pretty darn cool, and worth your time to start mastering. There are 3, the trill, the “tweedlie” (a mordent, I believe, if you want to…
No Clapping On 1 & 3!
As the saying goes, “Friends don’t let friends clap on 1 and 3…” So, yes, today’s video is with a little tongue-in-cheek irreverence… but it’s still important (we can have some fun and still do the good work 😉 This isn’t hard at all, in terms of what we’re playing, it’s a simple blues progression…
Ain’t Nobody’s Business – Freddie King
The tune, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” as done by Freddie King is one of my favorite songs of all time. Freddie’s playing and the Gospel infused chord progression are just some of the coolest music there is, in my humble opinion. So in today’s video I’d like to share the chords and structure of the song…
The Blues Squeeze…
Lots of folks think that in order to really make the blues sing, you have to use a major sound (or a major blues scale) over the I chord, and then switch to the minor blues sound (or scale, same thing) over the IV and V chord. And, truth be told, it’s probably one of…
Blues Rhythm Lesson On Chord Substitutions
In this lesson we’re going to talk about some ideas for replacing the good ole’ 7th chord with maybe some 9th, 11th, or 13th chords (oh my!) All of these chords are covered in my Blues Guitar Unleashed course if you’ve stumbled upon this blog post from YouTube or Facebook and aren’t sure where to…
E Major Pentatonic/Blues Riff Factory
There are SO many blues riffs that come from the notes in the open E Major Pentatonic and Blues Scales that you owe it to yourself to get really comfortable with these shapes and this form. So in today’s video, I’ll walk you through an idea that I came up with quickly, but you could…
Trading Fours Over A Shuffle In C With Box 1
Super catchy title today, don’t you think? Well, I couldn’t come up with anything fun, but it’s really fun to play guitar so grab yours and join me 🙂 There’s no TAB or downloads for this one… just play along!
Open E7 And A7 Options
Today’s video is a fairly simple idea that can be used in a lot of different ways. It’s not difficult, so I’ll say this might even be a beginning level lesson, but it’s something I didn’t know about until I’d been playing for many years, and now I see it come up in lots of…
Major Pentatonic Pattern In 3 Positions
As with many of my blog lessons, this one comes from a question… The question was in reference to using the Major Pentatonic Scale over a blues… and changing the scale for each chord. Short answer, yes, you can, and here’s how (longer version, it’s not my thing… but you might really love this sound)…
Let’s Talk Technique…
As blues players, sometimes the word technique leaves a… less than desireable taste… Blues is about feeling the music and playing from your heart and leaving your soul bare on the stage for all to see and hear… But, how do you think you’re going to do that if you can’t play well? If I…
