Learning blues guitar

Subject: Learning blues guitar
From:
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 12:50 PM

Hi all After years of being a folkie (47 to be exact ) I want to learn blues guitar any advice

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Max
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:20 PM

Wake up in the morning, put on your shoes with holes in em, leave your woman, walk down a dirt road, get a gun, get drunk, talk about the devil, and end the day face down in some muddy water.

If you are Canadian, don't bother, you have no chance.

Stefan Grossman has a ton of great videos that give great camera angles and views of the finest of the blues musicians. Its easy to learn from them. He also has some great books.

Learn a lot of 7th chords. Thumb, thumb, thumb! Train your strumming hand THUMB to operate independently from the rest of your strumming hand fingers. Your thumb should be pounding out the bass notes and the beat. Robert Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy tend to just thump the root notes of the key with their thumbs on all 4 beats of the measure, while Brownie McGhee and Mississippi John Hurt alternate and ride around the base notes. Your thumb is like your whole left hand when playing piano. Listen to a lot of blues. I prefer the delta. Easy to enjoy and learn from are Big Bill Broonzy, Taj Mahal and Leadbelly.

Heroin is dandy, but reefer is cheaper.

I personally believe that the emotion of blues is far more important than the technique. The emotion is the religion, the technique is the science. You got to feel it to play it.

And learn this scale on your guitar and your voice:

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:31 PM

Smartass.......Nice graphic.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:41 PM

Max in his infinite wisdom is sooo right. As Canadians we've been forced to play only the following Blues.

"Woke up this mornin', put my muckluks on..."

"My good gal's done run off with that Shatner guy..."

"Gonna shoot that gal of mine with my little (oops no guns up here...change line to:) "Gonna go upside her head with a Wayne Gretsky model hockey stick"

" I was standin' by the crossroads.....and I didn't see anybody (includin' the devil) for 13 days. (Sung a lot in Manitoba or Sascatchewan)

"been all across these 48 (er..10 provinces)"

Nahh, it just doesn't work. I just turn "Squid Jiggin Ground" into a 12 bar.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: wdyat12
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:42 PM

Mike,

Seek out a friend that plays blues. Listen, watch, get the feeling, try it yourself, and you will learn. There are many books out there on playing blues guitar too. I will list a few that I have used:

Masters Of Instrumental Blues Guitar by Donald Garwood, Oak Publications. The instruction method of this book uses guitar tablature of traditional old blues favotites.

Electric Blues Guitar by the Staff of Green Note Music Publications. This book comes with a soft record, guitar tablature, fingering techniques, and more.

Country Blues Songbook by Stephen Grossman and others, Oak Publications. This is quite a compilation of old blues tunes, but you need to read music or have some old records handy when you're learning the tunes (no guitar tablature.)

wdyat12

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: wdyat12
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:50 PM

Rick,

You must have to slow it up a bit.

wdyat12

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:17 PM

Master all the chords in E and A keys including the second, third, and that funky run from 1==>3==>6==>2==>5==>1. Teach your little finger to stretch to the fourth fret on the Low E and A strings in an "E" formation and start by learning a basic boogy-woogy run, as in "Good Morning Blues" or "Roll On Buddy" or "Booshwah Town". That's give you some basics -- teach your thumb to do it in your sleep.

A

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: GUEST,Roger in Baltimore
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:25 PM

I recommend the Happy Traum tapes available through homespun videos. Do a web search for homespun and you will get their website. Happy, to me, is a bit more personable than Stefan Grossman, although Stefan's tapes are good.

Happy's first blues tape is pretty basic. If you have been playing fingerstyle guitar for a while, you may be able to start at the intermediate level.

All of the above advice works, except for Rick. Canadians never get the blues because the country is so pretty.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: wdyat12
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:32 PM

Mike,

Also a lot of blues can be played in open tunings with slide if your're into it. Open G works for me. Check out some old Tom Rush stuff.

Wdyat12

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Mark Clark
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:50 PM

GUEST,MikePutt@work,

I've see whole books on learning blues guitar that didn't say as much as Max did in his post above. Don't treat his post as a quick read, treat it as the creed for your new religion.

Good luck,

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 04:00 PM

CANADA BLUES

"I got those Canada blues,
Huskies on my trail,
Got those Canada blues,
Woman like Alberta hail,
Got those Canada blues,
Love like ice in the pail
Sticking to me like a tongue stuck on a rail
Those Goddammed Canada blues.

I wake up in the morning,
Darkness all around
I work all through the daytime
Darkness all around
I work all through the nightime, Darkness all around
Even the midnight sun done set on
These horsepucky Canada blues.

I pissed her name in the snow,
Just to see how it read
I pissed her name in the snow
Just to see how it read
I pissed her name in the snow,
Just to see how it read -- And when the damn snow melted,
She was still lying there dead.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Ruthie A
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 06:45 PM

It may sound obvious, but listen to as much blues as you can possibly find! All the greats (Robert Johnson, BLind Boy Fuller and the like), and everything else you can get your hands on. An authentic yet original blues 'feel' can only be developed, so get listening! It's not always just a case of learning chords - I've been exposed to blues guitar since birth (it's caused permanent mental damage, blame my father), and it's easy to tell whether the player/singer is blues by nature, or they've studied a different genre as their main interest.

Just my little bit of input!

Ruthie

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Bluesman and kde
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 09:17 PM

Peter T., That song was cool as hell. Did you write it? If so, you seem to have the warped sense of humor I have when I write.............Jim

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 10:52 PM

LOL Peter T!

Ruthie, you are right about the Real Deal blues. But even when you feel 'em you hafta learn to srtretch that little finger.

Peter, did you hear the tale of the snowy morning when Clinton woke up in the White House and discovered someone had written "Bill Clinton sucks!" in pee in the snow on the South Lawn? He was furious, of course, and he called up FBI Chief Freehan to fiund out who the hell had done it. Next day the FBI chief called him back and said that they had figured out that the urine sample belonged to the Speaker of the House. But there was one problem. The handwriting belonged to Mrs. Clinton.

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 03:56 AM

Amos, I heard it as "Nixon sucks" with Kissinger and Pat, but I'll bet it was first told about George and Martha. In this country, at least. On a serious note, I'm glad you asked this question, Mike, and thankful for all the helpful answers, because it's something I've been wanting to learn for a long time. I wrote "Inflammation Blues" when I was a first year med student in 1973 (come to think of it, that was around the same time I heard that joke), but don't sing it 'cause I can't play a damn 12-bar blues! I don't have the time to learn, of course, but if I ever get the time, now I know how!

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From:
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 04:04 AM

Max I do all that anyway,(just your first paragragh ) but I want to know what I should do differently, Mudcatters thanks very much for your help, Its up to me now, as Harry Chapin says on Six string orchestra "Do it fingers" and by the way I am not Canadian I'm Irish

Subject: RE: Help: Learning blues guitar
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 09:02 AM

Original, I'm afraid.
Try learning blues in open D or G -- much easier, and also authentic.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Learning blues guitar
From: PoppaGator
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 02:30 PM

refresh

I'm really curious about the long-lost graphic Max posted with his message back in February of '01. I guess we'll never know...