As you may already know, I’ve been playing the blues around the Southern California area for well over 20 years now… sometimes as many as 180 shows a year.<\/p>\n
Nowadays there just aren’t that many clubs to maintain that kind of schedule… but my back isn’t too upset over not having to carry my amps around the way I used to \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
And if there’s one thing that has never changed it’s the presence of the “old guard” blues lovers who don’t want nothing to do with us playing too many notes and too loud.<\/p>\n
I’ve long since gotten past it… you can’t please everyone and there’s no point in trying, but there’s also an “old guard” amongst blues guitar learners I’ve come to find.<\/p>\n
You might know him by these tell-tale signs:<\/p>\n
Now in the event you read those 3 things and think to yourself, “I agree completely!” then you probably should move on, I’m not the guy you want to be working with.<\/p>\n
Because in my experiences with private students and 30,000+ Blues Guitar Unleashed<\/a> members around the world nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n But the main bone I need to pick is with item #2 that there are no “rules” in blues.<\/p>\n First of all, rules are made to be broken, and they do get broken and they get broken often.<\/p>\n But blues, by its very nature of being a set 12 bar or 8 bar form starts out with an extremely rigid rule right off the bat!<\/p>\n Of course, there are variations (half a dozen or so) but by and large if you know the first chord in a blues, you know them all.<\/p>\n And why do you think you would go through all the trouble to learn a bunch of licks and songs from records of your favorite blues artists? To learn how they do it… the “rules” of how it is supposed to be done!<\/p>\n If you find that the same lick is used by 43 different blues players in the same place in the progression, you’ll know it’s a good one to use.<\/p>\n Well wouldn’t you rather someone just tell you the rule right up front instead of making you fish for it and waste weeks or months (or even years) trying to find it?<\/p>\n I know, I know… a lot of us are a little more “advanced” in our age and we don’t like doing things differently than they’ve been done. I understand that as well as the next guy.<\/p>\n But I also know that if I can learn the same stuff in 1\/10th the time – I’m all in.<\/p>\n Now if you’re interested in the 3 rules that my students and I use day in and day out, 365 days a year<\/a>, then check out this video<\/a> and start looking at the licks you know and use to see if you’re following them. If you’re liking what you hear right now, then you probably are.<\/p>\n