{"id":6674,"date":"2015-08-20T09:05:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T16:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/?p=6674"},"modified":"2015-08-20T09:05:34","modified_gmt":"2015-08-20T16:05:34","slug":"where-you-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/where-you-at\/","title":{"rendered":"Where You At?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to love those commercials where it just went from one guy to the next talking to each other saying, “hey, where you at?”<\/p>\n

Maybe you’ve never seen it… I’m sure it’s been a few years since it was on.<\/p>\n

But it doesn’t change the fact that at some point you are probably going to wonder “where you at” in your guitar playing.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not going to take the ENORMOUS amount of time it would take to cover every single skill you could have for any style of music… this is a blues hang and I’ll keep it that way \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

So we’ll just break it down into 4 simple levels…<\/p>\n\r\n

\r\n
\n

--- Level 1 --- Beginner<\/em><\/h3>\n

The beginning stages are where you are learning basic guitar fundamentals right alongside with learning to play the blues.<\/p>\n

(Admittedly, there aren't many ways to actually do that because most \"beginning\" courses make you do all of the boring, traditional stuff... but I have a solution<\/a> to that.)<\/p>\n

You have to learn how to play single notes, chords, how to strum, how to count and keep time, and hopefully you'll learn some fun songs along the way for some experience.<\/p>\n

Now soloing? That's not really in the cards yet...<\/p>\n

There's really no reason a level 1 student should be trying to learn a bunch of scales and improvising over a blues. That's for later.<\/p>\n

--- Level 2 --- Intermediate<\/em><\/h3>\n

By the end of\u00a0level 2, you should be able to play a few songs and you should have most open and basic barre chords under your belt.<\/p>\n

You may not have any of the more advanced chord shapes yet (7ths, or 9ths or anything altered) but that's alright... this is the time for that.<\/p>\n

As for improvising and soloing, this is where you would start learning the pentatonic\/blues scale and learning to use it over a blues.<\/p>\n

Remember that the minor blues scale is far from the ONLY choice when playing over a blues... but it's the best place to start and many great blues players don't get much past it, ever.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of Level 2 you may be introduced to the concept of the major blues sound along with the minor blues sound and how they can be used together.<\/p>\n

But by and large mastery of that idea is best left for level 3.<\/p>\n

--- Level 3 --- Advanced<\/em><\/h3>\n

At level 3 we are taking the major and minor blues sounds and using them together (there are very few chords you don't know at this point so we can ignore them from here on out.)<\/p>\n

The basics are that you use the major blues sound in conjunction with the minor blues sound over the I chord, while you use the minor blues sound exclusively over the IV and V chord.<\/p>\n

This might sound like a simple rule, but the ramifications are astoundng and it can often take just as long to master this idea as it takes to get through playing with the minor blues sound alone!<\/p>\n

At the end of level 3 you start using a concept I call \"Every Chord is I\" where you are able to mix the major and minor blues sounds together so well that you can change keys every time the chord changes!<\/p>\n

Playing at this level appears effortless to anyone watching. You have such a command of the patterns all over the fretboard that you almost get to step back and watch yourself play - it's an incredible experience because your fingers just know where to go.<\/p>\n

--- Level 4 --- Elite<\/em><\/h3>\n

As you can imagine, few guitarists make it here.<\/p>\n

It's the elite... and it never ends.<\/p>\n

This is where your palette HAS to expand beyond blues sounds and incorporates some jazz ideas and very high level approaches.<\/p>\n

Things like using a half\/whole diminished over the last bar before the transition to the IV chord to get a 7b9 sound like Robben Ford does.<\/p>\n

Or using the melodic minor scale a half-step above the root of your V chord to create an altered dominant sound remeniscent of fusion greats like John Scofield or Scott Henderson.<\/p>\n

Probably 2% of all the guitar players on the planet ever aspire to this level and maybe even fewer actually get here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>
\nSo you might be asking yourself, where to from here?<\/p>\n

If you have a pretty good idea where you are now, and you know where you want to go, that’s a huge step in the right direction. (Remembering Alice, if you don’t know where you want to go it really doesn’t matter which way you take \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Now, Beginning and Intermediate guitarists tend to need the most guidance, and that’s why if you check out the Course Catalog<\/a>, you’ll see that there are specific sections for Beginning and Intermediate guitarists. If you’re a brand new player, Beginning Blues Guitar is for you and there really aren’t any other options.<\/p>\n

But the reality is that Level 1 and Level 2 are vast, and many people pick up bits and pieces here and there while leaving gaps and things they don’t know that they probably should have learned along the way. So if you already have some stuff under your belt, but still consider yourself a beginner, that’s totally OK and normal. And Strumming and Rhythm Mastery or Acoustic Blues Guitar Unleashed or even Blues Guitar Unleashed may be perfect.<\/p>\n

Advanced and Elite level guitarists tend to know what they need so the specialty courses are for you… with the exception of Guitar Theory Made Useful. Anyone can do that one at any time, but I don’t generally recommend it to beginners.<\/p>\n

I hope that helps a bit on your journey and gives you a good idea of where you are compared to where you could be soon…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to love those commercials where it just went from one guy to the next talking to each other saying, “hey, where you at?” Maybe you’ve never seen it… I’m sure it’s been a few years since it was on. But it doesn’t change the fact that at some point you are probably going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6676,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674\/revisions\/6676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}