The first step in mastering the style of blues with the guitar is to learn and master guitar scales.  This is a must if you want to be an excellent guitar player.  Setting time aside each day to only practice scales is a great strategy.  Look at it as if the scales are the underlying technique in which everything else can be laid on top of.  It’s the groundwork so to speak.  Without mastering scales, it will impossible to improvise with the blues.

One tip in learning your scales is to not rush and try to learn several scales all at once.  It is better to start with one, gather all the knowledge of it, and then practice it to perfection.  Memorizing one at a time will actually make it easier to learn more and will eventually give you the freedom, confidence, and creativity once you are improvising.

Start by memorizing the fundamental 5 most common key for guitar C, D, G, A, & E.  These are simple.  And then move on to a minor pentatonic scale, which the big daddy of all scales and is often used for blues improvisation.

Once you feel as thought you’ve mastered your scales, begin to learn how to use them in constructing improvised solos and leads.  A great way to do this is to improvise along to guitar backing tracks.  These tracks can facilitate you to improve your timing skills as well as how to play with other musicians.  They will give you the freedom to write and produce your personal lead parts and are really helpful to better your practice time!

The blues have always had a tendency of being very sad. In many cases, the artist is painting a story of what was going on in their lives at that time or something that they had experienced in their life.

If you have a true understanding of the period of time that the blues period was most recognized it came in after the ragtime period and this will also give you a feel as to where things were at in the world.

One of the most unique parts about the blues is that, unlike popular music of today, blues music does not always follow a set verse or chorus.

Blues music uses musical element by the use of “Blues Notes,” making the music maintain a sad tone and feel to it. Another piece that is drastically different about the blues is that the artist tend to be gifted more as musicians than vocalist.

Although you may feel that in many genres today, several of the artists have less than acceptable voices, for the most part they still make the grade. Having said that, and focusing back to the blues, you will find that part of the appeal with blues music is that they simply tell a story about where they were in life, economic hardship, women, slavery, and cheating.

So the next time you hear a great blues song, take it in for all it has to offer. If you listen closely, you will hear exactly what challenges faced that artist and society in that period of time. Let me know what you thought of this post by leaving a comment.