Gary Clark Jr.

Gary CLark Jr. is a upcoming star in blues guitar. He is, in fact, from Austin Texas. Gary is a fan of the Gibson guitar just like the other Gary (Gary Moore).

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix is well known for the first person to play the guitar with a new sound. He was the beginning  of a new age in blues/rock music. Today there are pedals, guitars, sound affects, and strings replicating the gear he once used. He also played left handed which is not very common.

JM

Another great video to learn from. John Mayer playing in front of a school.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan was and still is my sole motivation for playing guitar. I started listening to him when I was in about second grade and had no ambition for actually trying to play his songs. I about fifth grade I started taking a few guitar lessons a decided that it was pretty much impossible to play like him. Further on down the road I was taught that I was, in a way, capable of playing some of the easier pieces in his albums. It was just a matter of time before I started deciphering the art of the guitar legend. Watching videos and listening to music over and over is a great way to learn playing. Even I can play some stuff by ear and I have two hearing aids. This means your probably more capable than I am. : ) Enjoy!

Can't Emphasize Enough on JM

I will put out several posts on lessons from John Mayer or some of my favorite clips of his blues guitar playing. He is a great person to learn from and is one of the few blues guitarists left in today's modern music. Below is a video of him teaching his interpretation of his "Crossroads," cover.

Gibson Guitar Uses

Another common guitar label is Gibson. These guitars have the ability to produce very clean warm sounding tones, almost piano like. Unlike Fenders, Gibson guitars are used in many genres of music because of their ability to change modes very quickly. Famous artist like B.B. King and Gary Moore place trust in the feel of the pure sounding instrument.

John Mayer playing his Gibson.

Putting the Blues Scale to Use

Alright this post is going to be a lesson on how to effectively use the patters that are shown in the previous posts about the firs two positions. Once you have practiced that whole scale multiple times it is good to incorporate them into rhythms or chord progressions.

x-----x----x                     The chords shown on the left will be played in that order. Once that is mastered
5-----5----7                     have fun and improvise with the soloing in the A blues scale!
4-----5----7
5-----4----6
4-----5----7
x ----x----x

Fender Guitars

Blues guitarists primarily use Fender and Gibson guitars as their best instrument. Although there are many other great guitars out there Fender holds some tradition. From Buddy Guy to John Mayer these guitars have a thundering unmistakable sound to them. If you look at any stage setup there is is small chance that you won't see the piece. Their characteristics are: solid, strong, tough, sturdy. They are known mostly by their beat up look. It is a great first guitar and can last you a lifetime. They do come in various colors and styles if you don't prefer playing a used one. If your careless with personal items then this is the right guitar to invest in. Recently my Strat fell out of my mothers car onto grainy concrete from about seven feet in the air......Not much has changed                  
                                                                               
         

Tuning down a half step

Most music that we listen to have guitars' that basically the same as far as tuning.
e-------------------
B------------------
G-----------------
D-----------------
A-----------------
E------------------
These are the six open notes in standard tuning. There will come a day, if you stay with playing, that you will encounter a change in tuning. Not very many artists, of any level of experience, will write songs in a different tuning because it is hard to match words after that. Anyways, as long as you know the Major Scale pattern (W-W-H-W-W-W-H) and that sharps and flats don't go between b/c or e/f then each string should be fairly easy to tune.
Ex. Tuning down 1/2 step would look like this:
d#-------------------

A#------------------

F#-----------------

C#-----------------

G#-----------------

D#------------------

Practice makes....better!

Music can be an imperfect art. There are no boundaries or limits that you have to play within. In fact many artists learn new sounds by accident and later on include it in playing. The reason I bring this up is to remind blues guitarists that we have a sound of our own. Some blues guitar is clean and very good, but most are pretty dirty heavy sounds. Use your imagination when playing and try new things even if they are uncomfortable. Look up a few of these artists for some inspiration: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Albert King, John Mayer, B.B. King.

 Many of my hobbies and interests fall into the same category as most other guys which is sports. I grew up around basketball players since my dad was a coach and am even named after a Duke basketball player (Quin Snyder). I'm still involved in baseball and love every bit of it but, during my freshmen of high school I discovered something that I new was going to stick with me until the day that I die. I got my first taste of the six string guitar. I was with my cousin for the day because I had nowhere else to stay until my parents got home to unlock the door to the house that I left my key in fortunately! My aunt had been talking to her son, my cousin, about taking guitar lessons and finally set up a time to go. So as I tagged along into the music store to watch the lesson with everybody else the teacher started showing off a little bit of his talent and played stuff that I thought only the famous musicians could take on. I asked him to play several songs before he started teaching. As the lesson progressed my attention was fixed on every little detail that this guy was saying and when the lesson was over i'd already made up my mind about two    things. One I was going to learn to play the guitar well and two if this guy could play this stuff then I sure as heck could. Ever since that day I have been playing. Anytime little window of time I have throughout my schedule am playing and usually yelled at to get going on more important tasks such as: homework,  chores, going to bed, eating dinner, you name it. Since started playing I feel like watching t.v. is the biggest waste of time there is in a persons day. Anytime I can I encourage people to start playing even if it's tough at first. To me it's a way to express feelings and take your mind off everything thats going on around you. Blues music, specifically, falls into this category because of the freedom to improvise with just about any beat there is on the drums. I've been deciphering riffs and licks of many different artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, and John mayer

This post was supposed to be the first one but was moved when I went back to edit a few mistakes.

Apologies,

Quin

Reading Tabs

Being able to read guitar tablature is the easiest way to learn songs, chords, and scales on the guitar. Without having a clear description of how to read it then it becomes very frustrating. The first and most important step to this is to thing of the guitar upside down with the high e being superior to the others. If you hold it like this then you should have the the strings in this order: e, B, G, D, A, E. Usually it is shown at the front of the tab anyways but it can be an easy mistake especially with the D and G strings. From there all you have to do is look at the number on the string/line and fret that number on your guitar. If the numbers are directly above and or underneath each other then you play it at the same time. Ultimate Guitar Tabs is a great place to start learning how to read them and choosing the songs that you want to play.

More Riffs

Here's just a quick post for some fun and easy riffs to learn while learning the first two positions as shown in the previous posts.

--------------------------6----------------------------------------------------------3---------3-------6b---3-------------------------------------6----8-------8~~~~------------------------------------------3--------6b-------3--------------3--------------------------7--------------------------------------------------------------5b---------------------------------------------5---3----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          ^                                                                                             ^                                                            
            Played in the second position.                                         Played in the first position.
The b means to bend the string up and the wavy lines by the 8 is a vibrato.

Second Position for Blues Scale

Ok, once the first position on the last post is mastered it is time to start on the second. This position contains a few higher notes but is much easier to learn compare to the first. It is used in the the core of many solos and can be very fun. I believe the easiest way to learn this position is to start by playing the bottom five notes and add the next note on the high e string.

First Position of Blues Scale

The best approach to learning blues guitar, obviously, is knowing the blues scale. Unfortunately I didn't learn this until after I mastered many songs. Playing famous songs' is fun but, after a while it's tiring to hear the same line over and over. This is the first position that a blues fanatic should learn and will give them much more freedom for soloing.

Be creative with it. There are hundreds of licks that can be used within these notes!