In this guitar lesson, I’m going to show you 2 blues riffs you can use to create a cool blues guitar rhythm groove. These type of riffs are used by SRV, Clapton, and Derek Trucks as well as countless other blues guitar giants.

You can use these riffs to create a monstrous sounding rhythm groove. They will also really fill in the space needed for a tight blues rhythm. This kind of rhythm guitar is more piano based, and it’s one of the first types of blues riffs I learned when I started playing piano. I never got really good at playing piano, but I incorporated these types of piano riffs into my own rhythm guitar style. You’ll often hear Chuck Leavell, Dr John, or any blues piano player playing these kind of riffs and improvising through them.

So here is the first riff played in the key of C.

Listen to this example

Add 2 notes to the pattern to give some more drive to the riff.

Listen to this example

Be sure to mix and match these riffs when playing through a 12 bar blues progression. You can also combine them with chords to create a nice blues guitar rhythm. Try blending different riffs and chords over each of the I, IV, and V chords in the blues progression. In the key of C these chords would be the C, F, and G chords.

Learning these type of rhythm riffs can be invaluable when playing the blues in a band. Often times you will need to listen to the band to determine what you need to play to make the tune swing, so to speak.

Here’s a video of me improvising this type of blues riff and adding the Rake technique. Learn more about the rake in my Blues Method 3. Check it out here.

Listening to your band members is one of the key things you need to be doing as a member of any style of band. Reacting to what you hear is what truly makes a great blues tune. Listen to any great blues band and you will hear each instrument change depending on what part of the song is being played, and what other band members are doing.

Visit my website to check out more blues guitar lessons.

I have also created a 6 DVD Course on playing lead blues guitar. Check it out here.

In today’s lead guitar lesson, I want to show you a cool way to add some flavor to your blues guitar playing in the style of Warren Haynes. He didn’t invent this style, but he sure is good at making it sound incredible.

I think he got this concept from listening to such blues greats as Freddie King, Buddy Guy, and Albert Collins who all took advantage of the mighty 1 1/2 step bend.

So what is it?

The 1 1/2 step bend is where you take a note and bend it up 3 frets. So if you are bending a C note on the 13th fret of the B String, then you would bend up to the 16th fret, Eb to get the target note. This creates a really cool sound that you will hear in the blues all the time. In particular by artists such as Freddie King, Buddy Guy, and Albert Collins. Bending helps create a vocal type sound on the guitar and is very important in the blues.

You simply can’t play blues without bending! Blues is about a feeling. Recreating the pain of life through your guitar is best done through bending and vibrato. Ever hear the phrase , “That guitar is screaming!”, well now you get what they are trying to convey.

Warren Haynes is an excellent example of someone who took this concept and made it into his own style. If you listen to Warren play a lot, you will definitely hear this in his playing all the time. He has perfected this technique, which requires excellent pitch and knowing exactly how far to bend the string to get the desired pitch.

By practicing bending and recognizing how far you have to bend a note to get the desired pitch, your fingers will develop a memory of how far each string should be bent to get the intended pitch. This needs to be practiced daily until you can perform these bends without thinking.

Below is a common used bending technique like Warren would use over a slow blues in C.

Listen and Watch this lick below. For optimal viewing click the Fullscreen button in the bottom right and enable HD in the top right corner.

If you want to learn more about playing lead blues guitar, I have developed over 10 hours of lessons in my blues guitar DVD course to unlock the mystery of creating and improvising lead blues guitar.  Check them out here.

Does playing the guitar like Slowhand himself sound appealing to you?  Or maybe you’ve been trying to recreate those Cream-era Clapton solos and just can’t seem to pull them off.

Well In today’s blues guitar lesson,  I’m going to show you how to play blues guitar like Eric Clapton by utilizing the minor pentatonic scale.

Anyone that truly desires to play like this blues guitar legend, will no doubt have to learn the Minor Pentatonic scale.  This scale is the backbone to Slowhand’s  legendary electric blues guitar style.

Below is the first pattern of the minor pentatonic scale in the key of A.

Clapton uses this scale extensively to play many of his blues guitar solos,  and by adding a few elements of his style to your playing, you will be on your way to playing guitar just like Slowhand.

So what does he do to make this scale sound so good?  Well there are 3 things you can add to your playing that will help you to sound more like Clapton.

1. Use triplets If you listen to him enough,  you will know that Clapton uses triplets extensive in his playing.  Triplets are where you play 3 notes per beat.  From his early days with Cream, to the his modern day solo style, Clapton will often throw in a barrage of notes that are grouped as triplets.
2. Accent Notes To truly mimic his style another thing you can add to your playing, is accenting notes with the pick.  This requires you to hold the pick a little tighter than normal and really “dig in” to the note.  Combine this with triplets and you will definitely start sounding like the master.
3. Heavy Vibrato There’s no doubting that his vibrato is truly awesome!  This is a big aspect of his style and what makes his solos take on a more vocal type quality.  You will need to start practicing your blues vibrato every day to get it to sound like his.  He also moves his whole hand up and down which results in a different sound than moving your wrist back and forth.  I use this type of vibrato extensively in my playing as well.

Here is a lick similar to what Clapton might play in one of his songs “Old Love”.

Watch me perform this lick in the video below.

Learn how to play this style of blues guitar in my 6 DVD Course.

What is your favorite album from Eric Clapton?

24 Nights is definitely one of my favorites, and I think it ranks up there as one of the best live albums ever recorded. What do you think?

I’ve released 6 DVDs on how to play in the Clapton Guitar Style. Check them out here.

For more info on slide guitar and blues guitar please visit Learning Guitar Now

I’m sure everyone has heard of Derek Trucks by now. If you haven’t, you need to. He is becoming one of the greatest guitar players of all time. He has already accomplished amazing things such as, joining Eric Clapton on tour and playing Duane Allman’s guitar parts, playing in the Allman Brothers Band, and a Grammy win.

There is no doubt in my mind that he will go down in history as a legend just like Clapton, Hendrix, SRV, and Duane did.

But what makes him stand out from all of the bazillion guitar players out there.

There are plenty of other slide guitarists, many and guitarists with more technique (Vai, Malmsteen, John Mclaughlin). So why has Derek become so adored?

Why

I think it is for many reasons, but this one in particular is why I think Derek has moved to the forefront of being the next guitar legend. So what is this reason? Well, this is only my opinion but I think it comes down to Derek’s ability to play guitar like a singer.

To play like Derek, you need to learn vocal licks and not guitar licks. In this day and age when anyone can play speed arpeggios with their guitar behind their back and then move into 8 finger tapping, Derek’s VERY melodic and intense emotional playing comes off as a breathe of fresh air. Although Derek does have lots of chops, he certainly knows how to use them to effectively create an emotional experience with his guitar.  This is what sets him apart from so many others.

Ray

Derek’s ability to imitate the human voice became quite evident to me when I first started listening to him about 10 years ago. I read in an interview that he often tried to mimic his wife’s (Susan Tedeschi) vocal runs on the guitar. After reading this, I went back to the early R&B recordings and noticed that a lot of what Derek was playing was coming from these singers and not the guitar players.

Ben E King, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, and Aretha Franklin. If you listen to Come Back Baby by Ray Charles you will hear a lot of Derek Trucks slide guitar licks.   If you can transcribe Ray’s vocals for slide guitar, you will learn a lot about phrasing and putting together a memorable solo. Notice how much space there is between his vocal licks?

When you play, are you always trying to fit as many notes as possible into the tune? Does your playing always sound like riffs?

I find these 2 things very common when people start playing slide guitar. At some point you have to forget the riffs and try to play a solo as one cohesive thought. Not a bunch of riffs put together. It is very hard and I struggle at this too.

How

For me, when it really comes down to it, you have to forget everything you have learned when you’re trying to play a solo. Thinking about intervals and scales on stage can lead to very bad results and can often produce a mechanical type sound.  This is where Derek excels.  Derek is so good at developing a solo. He gets you interested at the beginning, gains momentum, and then delivers the knockout punch at the end. You MUST think like this when you’re playing as well. Try to give someone an emotional experience and not just a barrage of notes to try and impress everyone.

In my opinion, some of the best slide guitar licks are the ones you learn by listening to vocals. Try to understand their phrasing. Listen to them constantly, and their licks will become ingrained in your head. You will then start to hear what you need to play if you are comfortable with intervals and the fretboard.

If you want to learn more about this, I have created 6 DVDs to learn open e tuning slide guitar.  Check them out here.

I’d love to hear your opinion on this topic. Leave a comment below about why you think Derek Trucks is so great, or maybe you don’t think he’s that great at all.

I got an email a while back from someone asking what CDs I recommend to him for learning to play blues guitar.

I thought I would do that right here in this blog post.  I cut my teeth on these albums and recommend anyone serious about learning blues guitar and slide guitar to at least check them out.

Here are some of the albums that helped me learn to play the blues.  Keep in mind this is not a list of the best blues albums, but the albums I think are necessary for learning blues rock guitar.  There are more albums that are great, so leave a comment below about your favorite albums.

Blues Guitar

1. Door To Door – Otish Rush and Albert King.   Standout tracks are, “I Can’t Stop Baby”, “Won’t Be Hanging Around”, and “All Your Love”.  Otis had a killer vibrato and some stinging blues guitar licks like no other.
2. Live at the Regal - BB King.  One of the all time greatest blues albums of all time.  Licks that MUST be in your arsenal of blues guitar!
3. Texas Flood – SRV.  What can you say, SRV had power and tone beyond belief.  This album cut in a matter of days was done with only one overdub, and that’s because he broke a string in the middle of a solo.
4. The Sky is Crying – SRV. Another great SRV album.  Standouts include, “The Sky is Crying”, “Little Wing”, and “Chitlins Con Carne”.
5. Burglar – Freddie King. I love this album!  Funky with Eric Clapton playing rhythm guitar.  If you don’t have this one, you MUST get it.  Awesome funky blues with killer horns, bass lines, guitar and drumming.
6. 24 Nights – Eric Clapton. This is worth it for the “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” version alone.  Standout tracks are, “Old Love”, “Before You Accuse Me”, and “Hard Times”.
7. Layla – Eric Clapton and Duane Allman. – Do I really need to tell you this album is good?
8. Electric Ladyland – Jimi Hendrix. Jimi was a great blues player in my opinion.  The version of Red House on this album is great as well as “Voodoo Chile” and “Voodoo Child”.  A must have for sure.
9. Live At Fillmore East – Allman Brothers. This is the Holy Grail of guitar in my opinion.  If you only had one album in this list, I would say make it this one.  Yes it is that good!  Every track is a standout.
10. Damn Right I got the Blues - Buddy Guy. Buddy has amazing vocals and guitar.  I used to sit in my room with this album and try to get the feeling Buddy got out of his guitar.  Standout tracks are, “Damn Right I Got the Blues”, “Five Long Years”, and “Too Broke to Spend the Night”.
11. Cold Snap – Albert Collins. This is a killer album with a killer band.  His vibrato and bending are unique to anyone.  Learn it!  Standout tracks are, “I Ain’t Drunk”, “Too Many Dirty Dishes”, and “Bending Like a Willow Tree”.
12. John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, The Beano Album – Eric Clapton. Historical album with legendary guitar licks and tones.  Standout tracks are, “All Your Love”, “Hideaeway”, and “Double Crossing Time”.

Slide Guitar

1. Live at the Fillmore East – The Allman Brothers.  ”One Way Out”, “Done Somebody Wrong”, “Statesboro Blues”, and “Trouble No More”, Need I say more?
2. An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band Set 1 – The Allman Brothers. Warren in Standard Tuning Slide.  ”Blue Sky”, “End of the Line”, and “Dreams” are great learning tools.
3. Govt Mule – Govt Mule. Once again Warren showing a great way to learn slide in standard tuning.  He was pretty much the one that got me into playing slide guitar.  ”Monkey Hill” and “Mule” are rocking to say the least!
4. Live at the Georgia Theatre – Derek Trucks. This is the album that I cut my teeth on to learn open e tuning slide guitar along with Joyful Noise.  It has amazing slide guitar that will make your jaw drop.  Standout tracks are, “Gonna Move”, “Feels So Bad”, and “Leaving Trunk”.
5. Joyful  Noise – Derek Trucks. Just a great album to get into Derek Trucks.  Standout tracks are, “Joyful Noise”, “Home in Your Heart”, and “Like Anyone Else”.
6. Johnny Winter – Third Degree. Johnny Winter is a killer slide guitarist and early on I saw what was possible with the slide.  Standout tracks are, “Mojo Boogie”, and “Bad Girl Blues”.
7. Where it All Begins - Allman Brothers. This album is the how I learned to play slide guitar in standard tuning.  Warren is just awesome and if you want to play slide guitar is standard tuning, this is a must have album.  Standout tracks are, “No One To Run With”, All Night Train”, and “Everybody’s Got a Mountain To Climb”.

Well that’s pretty much the albums I cut my teeth on to learn blues and slide guitar.  There are others but I can’t list every single album here.

I must say that writing this blog post has taken me back to the days when I spent time in my room listening, and wishing I could reproduce the sounds of those legendary albums.  While I was learning those licks back then, it only seemed like a dream that someday I would actually be able to play some of those guitar licks in front of people.

Do you have any albums you spent a lot of time learning?  List them below in the comments.  I’m sure I left out some good ones.

If you know the Allman Brothers, you know Dickey Betts. I think a lot of people think of Dickey Betts as more of a guitar player than a songwriter.

While Dickey is an extremely talented guitarist, he is also one heck of a songwriter and composer. It seems that Duane Allman gets much more praise than Dickey Betts, and I guess I can see why.  But without Dickey I don’t think Duane would have sounded as good.

Duane played more blues and morose sounding guitar and Dickey always brought in a more happier Major type sound. The balance of the two is what I think separated the Allmans from every other Southern Rock Band out there.

If you look at the songs Dickey has written, you will see that he was a major force behind some of the most popular songs the band ever had. He definitely added a country blues and jazz feel to the Allman Brothers sound.

Listen to Ramblin Man or Jessica. These tunes sure do have some country feel to them. Then you go and listen to Liz’ Reed and you can hear the Jazz and improv nature to his songwriting and guitar playing.

Songs Dickey wrote:

1. Ramblin Man
2. Southbound
3. Blue Sky
4. Jessica
5. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
6. Revival
7. Seven Turns
8. Change My Way of Living

I’m sure there are many more but that’s what I could think of offhand.  I was listening to “Change My Way of Living” this morning from “Where it All Begins”, and man, is that tune catchy!  I believe Dickey has a very melodic sense when playing, writing, or singing.  You know he does have a really great voice!  His vocals on Blue Sky are fantastic!

Yngwie Malmsteen on Dickey Betts and Jessica

So for kicks I thought I’d throw in what Yngwie thought of Dickey Betts playing. Taken from a Guitar World interview in 1994

“MALMSTEEN: I like it. Very inventive twin-lead guitar in the beginning. It’s very musical, and on pitch. What they’re doing, they’re doing right. Although it doesn’t sound technical or wild, the guitarists are playing perfectly in tune. A lot of people don’t relize that guitar playing is very much like singing or playing any of the glissando-type instruments — you have to do it in tune.

GW: That was the Allman Brothers.

MALMSTEEN: I thought I’d heard it before! Back in the Seventies, I saw Dickey Betts playing a live show on TV, via sattelite from the Rock Palace in Hamburg, and remember being impressed by the fact that he was playing clean and very much on pitch.”  Taken from Guitar World August 1994

Best Band Ever?

To me, when it all comes down to it, the Allman Brothers original lineup did NOT have a weak link.  They are my favorite band of all time, and I don’t think think there is another band who could pull off what that lineup could.

The  wall of drums and percussion,  awesome walking bass lines, great songs, Gregg’s killer organ and voice, Duane and Dickey’s guitar harmonies and leads,  they were the total package.

What do You Think?

It seems Dickey is not really regarded as a prolific songwriter, but he wrote some of the most influential melodies and riffs in rock and roll period.  So back to the point, what do you think of Dickey’s songwriting and composing skills?  Let me know right below.

If you’re interested in learning how to play like Dickey Betts, I’ve released a DVD or Download just how to do this.  Check it out here.

This is a very simple lesson, but one of the hardest to put into use. It is probably what separates the real bluesmen from the wankers.

For example, when you are having a conversation with someone and you would like to illustrate your point with a story, do you immediately give away the ending right away? Not if you’re a good story teller. You will ease them into the story first with something to get them interested. Then you will build the story up, and up, and up, until you finally finish with the climatic ending. Now imagine if the story just started with the climatic ending. It probably wouldn’t be that impressive.

Jaws

You see it’s the build up of the story that makes the ending so climatic. You’ll find this in every great movie ever made. What if Jaws started with a guy on a boat, and then he killed the shark. It wouldn’t be as good, because you don’t have the backstory and what caused the strife between the 2 characters.

This is the same with your blues guitar solos. Everyone loves the ending of the solo when the guitarist is pulling all punches to bring together the climatic ending.
The truth is, that without the buildup of all the licks before the climactic last 12 bars, the ending wouldn’t be as great.

It takes the backstory for the solo to come together as a solo and not just wanking. You’ll usually hear people applaud when the solo is in the climactic ending, but rarely will you hear massive applause when the solo is in the beginning form. This is what I always payed attention to. Not the ending so much, but how they built it up. If you can build it up, it’s easy to end. All you have to do is play sustaining notes, fast runs and hit the strings with passion.

Listen and Learn

The problem is getting the listener interested with your solo’s backstory, so to speak. I find this one of the hardest things to do. Derek Trucks, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, and BB King were masters at this. Study this. This information is worth it’s weight in gold!

One of the hardest things to learn is restraint. Be patient! You can’t push the solo, you have to let it come together and sound natural. You don’t want your solo sounding like the story of “Gigli”. If you don’t know, “Gigli is the masterpiece of film starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez!  If this doesn’t make sense, I’m telling you to not be MUNDANE.  One thing that helps me is to forget about everything and don’t look at the fretboard as much.  Don’t think scales!  Think feel.  Scales are for practice, not performance.

So start telling a story with your solos. I promise you people will pay a lot more attention if you do.

For more information on slide guitar and blues guitar, please visit Learning Guitar Now.

Are you doing this? Post a comment below of what your experience has been.

You’re the top dog, with master chops. You can play blues guitar licks faster than a speeding bullet. If your fingers could get a speeding ticket, you would be driving without a license. Simply put, you got fast chops and you know it.

Now before I go on, this post is not about every single guitarist, but about some that I have noticed while being on the music scene and will not apply to everybody.

We want it now!

Everybody wants fast nowadays. We want our food fast, our internet fast, our shipping fast, and pretty much anything we can get our hands on, fast.

Stated bluntly, we want it fast and we want it now!

Now I agree, and I like everything fast just as much as the next person. With the internet, anyone can find anything they want or need at the touch of a button. People in general including myself have no patience anymore. I get on 285 and don’t go 20 miles over the speed limit and people are flipping me off! People are in a hurry and don’t want to wait.

If we go to a website and it doesn’t load within 3-5 seconds, we are yelling at the computer saying why this piece of crap won’t run!

The exact opposite is how we need to approach our blues guitar playing. Fast and now = not good blues guitar. There are exceptions, although as a general rule I will say that less is more has never been more apparent than when you are playing the blues. Mixing in some fast notes when playing the blues is fine, but you must slow down at some point or all the feeling is lost. Don’t try to play for the respect of musicians, play from the struggles and pain that have got you where you are in this life. 5 notes played from the soul, will outdo 100 from the hip any day in my book.

I find myself always trying to play a less is more approach. I think it sounds better and conveys more emotion. I’ve done a little test to prove this point, but there are certain factors that may also come into play that I can’t know for certain.
I released 2 YouTube videos and and tracked the attention span of them.

First this video:

Now the slow BB Lesson:

Here’s the attention span:

It’s obvious which one more people are into, but the BB King video gets a lot of positive comments, emails, and Gibson put it on their front page of the lessons section recently.

So what does this mean?

Well it’s hard to say, but from one perspective it shows that people only want to learn fast distorted blues licks, which is good, but you’ll need more than that to survive on stage at a blues gig. Those speedy blues licks will only go so far, and without something of substance added in, they’re not going to stand out at all after the first couple of tunes.

It could also mean that the people learning the licks, already know how to do the easier lessons, but there’s no way to tell for certain. All I can tell you is that for you to sound good playing the blues, learn a handful of slow melodic, but powerful and emotional licks. Use these in your blues guitar solos and I guarantee you will do fine. You can then add some speed as you get comfortable. Used sparingly, fast blues licks are amazing, but used all the time can create quite a boring solo in my opinion.

Have an opinion? Let me know what your experience has been below.

For more blues guitar and slide guitar lessons please visit Learning Guitar Now.

Seth Godin put out a book entitled, “The Dip”. This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to anyone trying to learn something, or run a business.

In this book Seth talks about the process of how one goes about learning a specific skill. He says in the beginning it’s all new, and exciting. Everything is fun because it is all so different from what we have been doing. Then the newness wears off. All of a sudden it’s not as fun anymore, and the results are not as easy to see. We get caught in a standstill so to speak. This is the Dip.

When things become difficult and not fun, most people then give up.

This is exactly why the skill becomes very popular and regarded as impressive. For without the Dip, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be as impressive. If you’re not ever experiencing the Dip, then it is likely you are not on the right path to achieving what you set out to.

You can easily apply this to guitar playing and with lessons.

A lot of people want to play guitar, and in the people I teach it is the blues. I know there are a lot of people who go through the lessons, and it is all new and exciting. Everything is clear and it becomes apparent of what you must learn. This is exciting! Then after a couple of weeks, it’s not new anymore, and it becomes an arduous task. You practice the lessons, but now you’re not seeing much improvement at all. This frustrates you and most people will simply give up. This is the Dip.

The person that realizes this, will push forward even though they don’t see any improvement.

The harder the skill, the bigger the Dip. These people that push forward, will realize huge benefits. They will all of a sudden get it, and become a truly remarkable player. This does not happen in 1 month, but could take many months or years, depending on the task at hand.

Is it worth it? Only you can determine that.

So the point here is to realize when the Dip is happening and attack it with a vengeance. If you know it is happening, then you can sure you are headed in the right direction, although it may not feel like it at the time.

More often than not, when the Dip comes along, we get a feeling of desperation, frustration, anger, and disappointment. We must then channel these emotions positively and attack the Dip. If we do this, I can guarantee the outcome will be much better than the feelings we have when the Dip occurs.

Remember if you do this, you are in the minority here. This means you are headed in the right direction.

So the next time you are working on something and it is just too hard for you to do, acknowledge that you are in the Dip, and this exactly the place you want to be.

Are you experiencing the Dip? Leave a comment and let me know what you have done in this situation.

To check out some of my Blues Guitar Lessons please visit Learning Guitar Now.

Win a $500 Sweetwater Pro Audio Gift Certificate by adding a comment below telling what you would buy if you won. The winner will be announced on Thursday, March 4th 2010.

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Important Note: This Gift Certificate cannot be redeemed for cash or lessons at Learning Guitar Now. The winner will receive a Gift Certificate for $500 to Sweetwater Sound.

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$500 Gift Certificate to Sweetwater Sound

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Important Note: This Gift Certificate cannot be redeemed for cash or lessons at Learning Guitar Now.The winner will receive a Gift Certificate for $500 to Sweetwater Sound.

Thanks,

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