I had a really neat conversation with a friend of mine who is a great musician… but trained VERY differently than I was.
He grew up playing mostly classical music until college when he had some jazz classes and some improvisation classes.
I guess you could say those classes “didn’t stick” very well.
And he wants to play the blues so badly, but he feels very stuck in the “I can’t play it if it’s not on the page” rut.
Now believe me, I have nothing at all against classical music and I think it’s wonderful and I studied it deeply for many years and performed as a solo classical guitarist many times.
… but it’s not the blues and it’s such a very different approach.
And many students really struggle with playing music that isn’t on the page in front of them like my friend… maybe you are one of those people?
If you are, I have some news for you… at some point you are going to have to take a step off the ledge and go for it and just try.
Trying usually involves failing, to some degree, and that’s what you want… in fact, you want to fail as quickly as possible so that you’ll know what not to do next time 🙂
But there’s more to it than that… failing reminds you that this is not brain surgery and the penalty for error is really not that bad. You can always try again and improve.
Let’s say you’ve been through my Blues Guitar Unleashed course. Or at least you’ve been through the first 8 or 10 lessons….
At that point you’ll have quite a few rhythmic fragments that you’ve picked up. There are several chords and variations, some rhythmic ideas, and some common blues “riffs.”
But what happens when you go to play over a jam track with no guitar on it? Do you know what you’ll play?
The possibilities become endless almost immediately and for many people that creates and instant panic situation and absolutely nothing comes out.
But in reality, almost anything you come up with will probably be right (or at least, not wrong.) As long as you have the right chords for a 12 bar blues (assuming you are playing a 12 bar blues) there are no rules and no right answer to what to play – so just play something and try to record yourself doing it.
Why? Simple… when you’re done you can go back and listen to yourself playing along with the track (this is why I include “no guitar” tracks in Blues Guitar Unleashed.)
How does it sound? Do you like it? Then it’s good. Don’t like it so much? Listen again and see if you can hear why you don’t like it…. then try to correct it and go again.
The process of doing that will bring more progress to your playing than you can possibly imagine… but you still have to try first.
But what about if you hear a blues rhythm you want to try to copy?
Well you’ll need 2 things, the chords and the rhythm. There aren’t that many blues chords on the planet and chances are (again if you’ve been through a course or 2) that you have most, if not all, of them down pretty good.
You know the chords are likely 7th, 9th, or maybe 13 chords… so try them out along with the recording until you find the one that sounds about the same. Does it have to be perfect? Of course not. But you’ll get more and more perfect the more often you try (are you seeing a theme yet?)
For the rhythm…can you hum it along with the beat? Good, strum when you hum and you’ve got it. Can’t hum it? You won’t be able to play it either so you need to fix that first.
Simple.
Do you want to solo? Have you learned a blues box or 2 but can’t bring yourself to actually play a solo?
Break out those jam tracks and try playing one. Will it be any good? Probably not at first… but you need to try first so you have a baseline of what you can do.
From there you need vocabulary – you have to have something to say before you can say anything substantial and that means learning some blues solos.
And once you’ve got them down start breaking them apart and trying to use the pieces by themselves – those licks are what improvisation is all about.
No matter what you’re trying to do… the first step is always to try it… to see if you can do it or what you come up with.
It’s like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the easier it becomes and before you know it you’re down to try anything!
37 replies to "At Some Point You Have To Take A Step…"
I began playing guitar during the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel etc era. All by ear, all by dropping the needle at the right spot on the album track and trying to imitate what I was hearing. I ruined a lot of records doing that. Then as I progressed and started playing some finger picking solos, I wanted to learn more abut the instrument. I enrolled in a music school and studied Classical Guitar, but I was completely amazed by the number of students who could read a whole lot better than me, but couldn’t follow a simple chord progression by ear. I think its important to remember that musical notation was developed AFTER people started playing music, not before. It is an aural art, not a visual one. However, I never attempted to be a “lead” player. It just did not seem to suit me even though I was jealous of my buddies who could jam the blues and I could chord along but never could play a decent solo. Then the 4 Note Solo ad popped up on my computer one day. I purchased the course and just recorded solo # 6 and copied it into the BGU forum. I think I’m catching on. But I will say that being able to read music is one more tool in your bag tricks to learn new stuff. A blend of playing by ear and understanding music notation works for me. I am on the verge of playing along with the jam tracks now and looking forward to the next challenge.
Thanks it is good advice. We’ll just keep plugging away.
Mitchell
Thanks for the pep talk teach !! I’ve been working on the first five lessons in BGU unleashed, and I know now is the time to step up a see what happens when I play over the jam tracks. Probably going to be some timing issues on chord changes- but like you said- you don’t know until you try.
so try !! thanks again Griff 🙂
Ever thought of a PDF manual of finger positions for your little chords.?
The 12 bar Blues is not the be all and end all . I love the Blues . Don’t compare your self to others .You are a compitent guitar player full stop. One trick wonder .
Hi Griff, interesting because I’ve never played any other way! I don’t read music and I’m currently trying to learn scales and other techniques you show. If I hear something I’d like to play I spend time looking for the chords on my guitar or find the chord sheet for it. Admittedly, its kept me back, as has my random interest in the guitar, but I’ve recently got back into it. This is partly due to buying a modern version of the guitar I had in my late teens (many years ago!) It was a sunburst finish 1961 Stratocaster! Yeah, I know, worth about £8,000 now but I didn’t have a crystal ball. lol. It’s such a beautiful instrument that I practice finger work, daily.
Thanks for the great advice griff, have been playing along with some jam tracks, forget where I am going every now and then, I guess I do need to record myself, so will do. Thanks again.
How is you always seem to know what we are struggling with, all of the above I can relate to. Love the post Griff think you are a great teacher. at 66 I never thought I could learn so much.. Thanks again.
Dale
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Griff! People, get yourselves down into the Virtual Jam Room on the forum! This is exactly what it is there for!
Griff…I think many of your customers are old folks. Including me. Were coming back. It’s the invasion of the old people! Use lots of distortion!
A struggling octogenarian challenged by all 6 strings, but useful in getting a group together and shaming them into performing in a VA parade. After so many practices, the group invited me to join them. They assured me that we were ready. We had very capable players on violin, bass, drums and two acoustics, then me. I worked very hard to get the chords at the wright time, but the parade started and things were out of control. All of the tunes started in C so I kept up as much as I could until things went south, then I waited for the next beginning with a new C. I may have been on cue 10-15% of the time, but the fact that my amp was not working saved the day plus the real fact that the others carried the load. The guys still talk to me and I aint giving up. I check you advise constantly and there is always something useful to me and I do appreciate it.
John: YOU ROCK! GREAT ATTITUDE…KEEP IT UP!
John…Brings back memories back in 1967 was playing the “winter carnival” at my high school…had a female singer…bass player showed up very late…and we didn’t get a chance to tune to each other…we were doing the Airplanes “White Rabbit”…begins with a very distinctive bass line…then the “Spanish” style intro begins off of it…I hit the note a D I think..and let it resonate, and quickly realized his bass was tuned a half step higher…instant panic…Had learned the intro note for note but couldn’t transpose to the sharp he was in…so I stepped back and indiscreetly switched off my amp, then walked around pretending to know what I was doing…the rhythm player WAS classically trained and quickly got into key and covered for me…the worst stage night of my life…but I managed to collect myself and go back out with the band for our second spot later in the show…tuned up backstage and went out to play “Somebody to Love”…and we nailed it…get right back on the horse !!
Hi guys just a short line tonight anyone remember a fine blues guitarist out of Texas called Sam lightning Hopkins. My father had an LP of sam’s about 35 to 40 years ago. Any of you blues guitarist. In the lone star state. Know of him. All the best guys. From ebargery@btinternet.com. Plymouth England
The first time I ever heard real blues was at 15 years of age when older friends were playing a Lightning Hopkins LP. Was a teenybopper then (1971). Immediately fell in love with the blues, I can still remember the words of the first song I heard, going something like this – “This mornin’, this mornin’ I woke up, I woke up, poor Lighning really was sad!….”. It was a whole new world to me in a conservative South Africa at the time!
Hi Griff,
Great Blogg,years late for yours truly,but better late I guess.
I’m the guy with mountains of sheet music to learn from and still get
more from noodling on my own.
Keep the tips coming and the good times rolling !!!
in my 40 years of playing i never could grasp reading , or writing sheet music. at this point in my life i’m fine with out it and don’t have the cognativity to grasp it. been going through a ruff patch with my artritist. now my left hand craps up painfully out of nowhere. trying to play when i’m flexable last about 10 minutes then it cramps up like a dead crows foot. thanks for the lessons. TK Griff.
Look every occasion for your advice. Keeps me focused. Thanks Griff
Absolutely, Griff!!!
Always inciteful Griff. I am a recreational player in my 50s, save a few lessons as a kid , I am self taught, learning the old fashioned way sitting down trying to learn from recordings, I view myself as a life long student.
I stumbled across Griff through his music first, then got one of his courses to help me expand my blues playing. I never had the problem of having to have sheet music to play, quite the opposite, as my reading and music theory knowledge is limited, and I don’t try to learn leads lick for lick , rather put my own spin on them, but I totally buy into the jam track, recording yourself message. Some years back I got kind of bored jamming to my favorite songs and a friend got me into recording. Jamming over backers , doing covers, some originals, now I even create my own backers. My playing, improved exponentially when I started recording myself. Not to mention a lot of little things I learned about song structures and each instruments role in a recording. I’ll never be a gigging guitarist or be as good as I want to be, but I am able to have a lot of fun playing and it never gets old!
What’s the difference between writing a song and improvising?
About a week!! (5 days vs. 5 minutes!)
Ever asked a SINGER to improvise? Sure, just make up some words and melody – on the spot!
IT’S NOT FAIR!!! Expectations for guitarists are too high!
Back in the late 70’s I joined a 6 piece band, as the vocalist. Everyone in the band came from, and was taught in high school band. From the horns to the guitar player not one of them could play even a single song without the sheet music in front of them. Not even a simple 12 bar blues. I got was essentially a garage band, to start playing in clubs. The problem arose when someone requested a song they didn’t have the music to. It was the most frustrating thing you could imagine. Trying to convince them that if they had the music to Kansas city, they could play the same thing to just about every 50’s rock song ever written, was very difficult.
Good thoughts nicly done as usual .Yeah ya gotta stick with it sometimes its pretty simple and than ya gotta work at it a little if its too hard go back to it later . I love my drum machine gimma a beat an watch out. B – ) Jam track yeah their cool . Rather play along with musicians who got it together. Like most of the ones i knew and the ones I am with now . Hell jam to a tune You know and do not know it will come HOW BAD YA WANT MATTERS MOST LATER GOIN FOR A GUITAR NOW.
Very nicely put,Griff…sometimes you just need to martial all of your experience together…pull up your bootstraps…and step out…don’t worry about the possibility of initial failures…just do it…don’t even worry about all those what-ifs…I’m saying all of that because I believe and have done it myself…for the better part of 50 years (this very month is my music anniversary)…I have been a bass player/vocalist…self taught…In the beginning I wasn’t so good, but I had desire and ambition…( my favs are now mostly dead…Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle, Jaco, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn just to mention a few )…I listened to these guys and learned from them…then about 6 years ago…I got bored I wanted to switch to guitar…so I put up basses…and picked up a guitar…several months later I got a call from an ex bandmate who was starting a new band…he wanted me to play bass and do lead vocals…I promptly told him no…but I would consider a guitar/lead vocal spot…I thought it was to be it was to be a quartet…WRONG!!…it was a trio…I had never considered playing lead, but I said I’ll do it…got on my computer…and I discovered ‘Griff Hamlin’s Guitar Unleashed’…I latched on to every bit of info that came to my email, digested it and applied it
…at first it was like it was when I first started with the bass…I wasn’t very good and I was quite sloppy…I got better…and then a little better…etc. I think that the biggest triumph for me was just stepping out and going for it…not being afraid to fail…so to finish up…in my long experience I would share one bit…”unless you make a glowing mistake, and I mean GLOWING most likely no one will ever know except possibly you and your bandmates…in that case…own it, learn from it and move on.
I think learning to play with jam tracks is critical and important in the
evolution of learning to play guitar or any instrument. I also think that
learning to read sheet music is just as important for many many reasons. I also think that only being able to play with the sheet music in front of you does not make you a great musician. I try to get away from the sheet music as fast as I can because I don’t like the idea that I am dependent upon the sheet music to be able to perform in front of people, which requires doing a lot of memorization. I think there is too much beautiful music out there to be playing one gender of music only, which is one of the reasons that I find sheet music valuable and important, and another reason is by having sheet music you don’t have to be picking out all the music you want to play learning by ear only, which is so time consuming, and too many times fraught with mistakes as to how the song is actually played. When it comes to blues learning one power song by Gary Moore with the same soulful application would be a thrill.
before I moved on to Solo 4 in your BGU I was playing Solo 3 to your track with you playing it to and I could get up to about 90% through Riff master pro. So I read your blog about moving on to the next lesson and put Solo 3away for a while. well just before I got setup to start learning lesson 4 I decided to try Solo 3 with the rythum track and what a sunrise I could keep up and finish in time. there were lots of little mistakes but I didn’t need to look at the tab after a couple loops and it sounded pretty good.
my confidence level went up two notches and Solo 4 didn’t look that impossible now. in fact I started it and I understood what you were teaching about the major, minor notes and on my way to learning more blues.
Thank you again grief this Journey of mine is really starting to heat up.
Tthis is one of the best lesson and suggestion of any you have shared. I be never had any formal training, can’t read lick of music but have managed to be able to hang in there with most stuff. I just jump in and experiment with things that sound good. Thanks again for your lessons and keep up the good work
Bud
Texas
Thank you, Griff! Even sitting here on an island in the Andaman Sea (Koh Lanta, South Thailand) I can learn something important from you (and without even having my guitar in front of me at the moment)… you actually cemented the point I made with my jam partners before I left LA last week..they totally struggle when playing without music in front of them….I’m going to share this post with them as I have some of your BGU lessons, and hopefully they’ll finally take the leap off the cliff with me when I get back next month.
Thanks man, truly appreciate you and the time you put in helping us become better musicians.
Be well and keep those posts coming.
RAB
love it…reminds me of when I was teaching school and got “volunteered” to help with an eighth grade musical…me with no site reading or theory background…my best friend was the keyboard players and did we have fun with her…I’d change up her sheets or the kids and I would cut into a current popular song and she had no idea what to do without the music…thank goodness she had a great sense of humor…but got even with me by asking me, “So what chord is this”?…off the sheet music…
That 14 song musical was one of the highlights of my teaching career…I still have the poster but I have always said that I wish I had more actually training…which is why I purchased your “Music Theory” course…and started connecting the dots…thanks…later.
cowboy
I have been following your advice since starting to learn and it’s paying off for me. You have given me this advice many times at different points in my learning process and it works!
Thank you for all that you have done for me and all that you will continue to do!
Great post, I hope everyone takes it to heart!
I’m just trying this now. With the lessons that you send Griff, and the songs that I’ve learned, I take bits from everywhere and put them together. I haven’t recorded yet or documented anything, so every time I sit down with the guitar it comes out different. But that’s OK, I just want to, as you say, play on the porch. And now I’m getting to that point. It’s taken a while, but the knowledge you share has taken me a long way and I really appreciate it.
Thanks so much.
Good advice which helps take some of the fear away from doing solos. Even if just doing it for yours self, at home. Thanks.
I completely get this. I’ve been learning classical guitar (I’m working through grade 4 with a tutor). I love it.
But I’ve also been working through BGU beginners course (I also have BGU to move on to). I love this too.
They are both completely different. With the classical you just can’t really better the original so you have to follow it (whether it’s Sor or Carulli, Carelli or Tarrega etc). You also have to learn to read music (the dots as well, not just TAB!)
Blues is very different. All I can say is that I’m still at the the toddler stage with learning my Blues vocabulary etc, so I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
1 suggestion, sometimes or have in the Past, used sheet music to learn a tune, one time was in a band, that had all their tunes in a neatly organized Binder, and numbered, so when they went to a tune is was by number not name, I saw quickly they could not play the tune unless they were on that sheet, weird really for me, So when I use a tab or sheet music to get the jest of the tune I close the music and play it from feel and memory,only time I referred back to the music was when I was totally stumped, found that solution and again closed the music till I have it in my head, then add my own interpretation. I as well have a friend that is amazing on piano and organ, Bach etc. But cannot play a note without the Music in front of him. I break the song down 1 line at a time and play that till I have it then the next etc, BUT for some reason Our minds work strangely, as long as you keep the book in front of you your mind will not retain the song, you must tell your mind to retain the tune by shutting the book and forcing yourself to play what you just learned from the Book, even if its just 1 chord at a time, now your mind will retain the information.
I agree with 601Blues , I was trying to memorize All of Me, by tabs and line by line. I would learn one line, and then another..but it really came all together when I closed the book and told myself that I knew it. After I memorized it, I then added my own interpretation from the key “boxes”. really fun for me. and I am no spring chicken! Also love to play along with backing tracks. Thanks so much Griff! You are a real self starter!
Thanks griff, you seem to be telescopic . Am probably two weeks away from that . Am very slow, but won’t stop will, I enjoy it. Cheers please ceep them coming
That is very good advice. I will stop procrastinating and try to play along with the jam tracks and record it and see what come out.
Thanks Griff