About Blues Guitar Music
Most people who are interested in the blues guitar and its music are usually players themselves. Studying the styles of the past masters is a great way to improve ones own playing as well as discover lots of gems of information about these colourful characters – lives that influenced their music.
One way to begin an introduction is by starting with a look at some of the blues legends born before 1924 as demonstrated in the video below.
The Singing Voice
There is nothing quite like a voice for expressing emotion and reflecting the culture of the time and life situations which initiated the blues music of the artists below.
The three audio tracks in the video are:
Nobody’s Fault but Mine by Blind Willie Johnson
Worried Life Blues by Big Maceo Merriweather
Country Blues by Muddy Waters
Notice how Blind Willie Johnson uses the the bass strings underneath his vocals and slide playing – three elements of bass accompaniment, vocals and slide fills which compliment the vocal phrases.
This vocal example demonstrates how blues phrases may also be played on the guitar. Three phrases with each phrase played over two bars – there is then a two bar gap.
The slide guitar and piano of the next track: Worried Life Blues, shows how a guitar and piano should work together. Many of the slide riffs reflect the way the piano is played and the guitar doesn’t go overboard at the beginning but gradually builds creating intensity as the song develops.
The last track by Muddy Waters is one of those: I woke up this mornin’ type blues songs that really is a blues guitar and vocal that represents what many people would think of as true blues with the turnaround and slide solo.
The great thing about listening to vocal phrases is that they give the guitar ideas about the kind of answering phrase to respond with.
It may be sometimes thought that these guitar fills between vocal phrases are from a time when guitar playing had not developed to that of todays standard – that’s why some may think that it is rather basic stuff.
However, it is wrong to assume that this guitar playing is undeveloped and without the advanced subtleties of today.
Far too much is made of effects and speed in todays playing and not enough of the feel and atmosphere that the blues players of yester-year were able to create.
A mistakes that players often make when they first learn to improvise on the blues guitar is that they don’t leave any gaps!
Learning to play guitar phrases that are similar to a vocal phrase is a great way to begin blues improvisation as a singer will always leave gaps – he or she has to breathe – and so should the guitar!
Of course these gaps may be used for some fast flashy fills and licks if desired, but the original structure can be kept and the player has a method by which to approach blues guitar improvisation.
Many rock guitar players would credit the blue genre as an important influence in their early development and the blues scale is an indispensable tool of all would be blues and rock guitarists.
Blues music grew and developed in poor areas where its players could barely afford to eat let alone buy an expensive instrument and it’s rather reassuring for those who are just starting to learn to play blues guitar – on a budget – that the great players of the past had instruments that were, by today’s standards, a very modest quality indeed!
Later, when the electric guitar came along, an archtop Gibson semi-acoustic was a treat and remains so to this day with prices that remain out of the range of most players pockets.
Still, if a battered-up old acoustic was good enough for Robert Johnson then I should not complain about the quality of my own guitar, but instead, try to focus on the most important aspect of all – the music itself.
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