Want to learn some blues

[ftgjr]

Having my new Les Paul Studio has made me push myself to learn a lot of new songs. I've learned more songs in the past 2 months than in the past 10 years. I also want to explore different style, like the blues, jazz and bluegrass. I still loving playing rock and metal but feel that learning these styles will make me a more well rounded player.

 

I've been listening to some John Lee Hooker and trying to pick up some riffs from that. I've also been tinkering with my equipment to get that bluesy sound. I am using a Zoom G2 pedal with the drive on the US Blues setting that goes into my Vox VT-15 and have gotten the sound just where I want it. I switch between the pickups as well.

 

Are there any good books or websites that I can learn from? I have added a few blues licks from youtube.

[milod]

My own recommendation is to keep watching youtube.

 

A lotta the old bluesmen, both electric and acoustic, used kinda a clawhammer style of pickin' - so you may wanna lose the picks a while just for the heck of it.

 

My reasoning is this: You can read and learn, yeah, but that may or may not entirely translate in the music. Do that later. Make the stuff part of your head, listen and play it, then mess with the books and more academic stuff.

 

Were we talking "classical" I don't think I's say that. But blues? Yupper. Ditto bluegrass, country, folk...

 

m

[dem00n]

Here are some free backing tracks for blues playing.

Tracks

[WahKeen]

You want to be a Blues man?

 

Got accused of peeping?

Got accused of petting?

Can you stand this third degree?

Got accused of murder?

Got accused of forgery?

Got accused of taxes?

Got accused of children?

 

Oh, Willie Dixon and Boyd...

 

YouTube should be plenty. Check out the playing tips in this site too. Welcome to the forums.

[milod]

Demoon...

 

Good idea for the backing tracks.

 

In fact, I'm gonna go to the reference you made my self! But...

 

Okay, here's where maybe I show my age.

 

I think probably playing solo with some sorta variation of fingerpickin' is the better way to start blues. Why? It forces you to play in time, which is a big deal for any style of blues; it also takes away any way to hide from whether or not you "get it" for blues concept.

 

m

[WahKeen]

Here are some free backing tracks for blues playing.

Tracks

 

Looks like they can be used for posting (not for making $)... Hmmm...

[ftgjr]

Thanks for the input guys. The backing tracks are way cool!

 

Much of what I'm listening to is Delta blues artists like Skip James, Pink Anderson and John Lee Hooker. I've been picking up some riffs and rhythm from different songs. Once I get a little better, I'll have to work on my timing.

[Diego the guy]

Did you say you learn many songs i dont exactly remember were i heard this or maybe i thought of it myself....

 

if you learn to many songs or covers, you dont develop your own style. and the more you develop your own style, the more songs you write for OTHER people to learn \:D/

[NeoConMan]

Just learn the Blues, don't live 'em.

 

[Mr. Natural]

Just learn the Blues, don't live 'em.

 

 

Amen, brother.

[NeoConMan]

I like to listen to all those old Led Zep songs, and all the other guys in that vein.

Get the song down, then go back and listen to the originals by Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Hooker, etc.

 

Try to figure out why they took them the direction they did.

 

Can't go wrong by making an old Blues tune your own.

[WahKeen]

Just learn the Blues, don't live 'em.

 

 

Dang, somebody shoulda told me that....

[Artie Owl]

For starters in Blues this guy named Phil Capone has a book called 100 Killer Licks and Chops for Blues guitar. He takes parts of known and lesser known artists, and it comes with a CD as a backing to play along with. I enjoyed the book and it gives you a good start.

 

 

Amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Licks-Chops-Guitar-Bibles/dp/0785824871/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283826180&sr=8-6

[ftgjr]

For starters in Blues this guy named Phil Capone has a book called 100 Killer Licks and Chops for Blues guitar. He takes parts of known and lesser known artists, and it comes with a CD as a backing to play along with. I enjoyed the book and it gives you a good start.

 

 

Amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Licks-Chops-Guitar-Bibles/dp/0785824871/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283826180&sr=8-6

Thanks. I'm going to order that book today.

[badbluesplayer]

Just learn the Blues, don't live 'em.

 

 

:lol:

[rockman82]

Try looking up Son House and T Bone Walker. Those are two of my favorites.

[milod]

Reading variations of comments here makes me increasingly convinced that listening to a wide range of "blues" is the best way to get started in any serious way - then looking at various books and other "how to" stuff.

 

"Blues" is a huge and multifaceted variety of music that has ranged from a single "chord" throughout the piece to a 12-bar variety and then variations that have gotten fancier through the years both in chord structure and overall complexity.

 

The common thread, however, is the "feel." And that doesn't come from books.

 

m

[Artie Owl]

Reading variations of comments here makes me increasingly convinced that listening to a wide range of "blues" is the best way to get started in any serious way - then looking at various books and other "how to" stuff.

 

"Blues" is a huge and multifaceted variety of music that has ranged from a single "chord" throughout the piece to a 12-bar variety and then variations that have gotten fancier through the years both in chord structure and overall complexity.

 

The common thread, however, is the "feel." And that doesn't come from books.

 

m

Jeeze Milod, cut me and other book learners a little slack. The nice thing about that book is it's more about a lick that a particular artist did rather than entire sweeping pieces. Not to mention that in this book it lists lots of different Blues artists to follow up on, I think it's a great start for lots of players. At least for those of us not lucky enough to have friends who play or have grown up around this kind of stuff.

[milod]

Brandon...

 

Hey, I meant nothing at all personal, but I'm going by my own experience.

 

I first heard "blues" of the non-televised sort (and there were only a couple of channels in those days) on my big old tube console radio. I was maybe 10-12 years old and it blew me away.

 

But at the time I was a trumpet player. No place for that, it appeared, with John Lee Hooker. So I started a lifelong attraction to blues while simultaneously trying to figure out what the heck "blues" meant.

 

Given that my Dad was into Aristotle, I was trying to figure how to categorize this stuff. Couldn't do it. I played "blues" on trumpet, but it was more "jazz blues" that I knew wasn't John Lee Hooker blues or some of the other stuff I came to hear through high school.

 

After I got my guitar I was even more flamboozled because "this blues" didn't fit with "that definition" of blues. Heck, I'm still not sure I can categorize this or that within the broader genre.

 

So... Honestly, if you're young or old and relatively new to blues, I still think that the current best way to catch on would be surfing youtube. Maybe looking in this book or that for some names may help - but I still think the surfing will help far more. I still do it myself.

 

m

[Artie Owl]

Brandon...

 

Hey, I meant nothing at all personal, but I'm going by my own experience.

 

I first heard "blues" of the non-televised sort (and there were only a couple of channels in those days) on my big old tube console radio. I was maybe 10-12 years old and it blew me away.

 

But at the time I was a trumpet player. No place for that, it appeared, with John Lee Hooker. So I started a lifelong attraction to blues while simultaneously trying to figure out what the heck "blues" meant.

 

Given that my Dad was into Aristotle, I was trying to figure how to categorize this stuff. Couldn't do it. I played "blues" on trumpet, but it was more "jazz blues" that I knew wasn't John Lee Hooker blues or some of the other stuff I came to hear through high school.

 

After I got my guitar I was even more flamboozled because "this blues" didn't fit with "that definition" of blues. Heck, I'm still not sure I can categorize this or that within the broader genre.

 

So... Honestly, if you're young or old and relatively new to blues, I still think that the current best way to catch on would be surfing youtube. Maybe looking in this book or that for some names may help - but I still think the surfing will help far more. I still do it myself.

 

m

 

Oh Milod, you golden tongued devil you, just when I think I got your post pegged you go and explain it better to me. I know what you mean, I actually did 6 or 7 years of concert band in trumpet, some days I wish I still had my chops because playing music on any instrument is usually enjoyable. I learned quite a bit from a few influential individuals that availed themselves to myself and my fellow band mates that honestly saved me from the boredom of my high school music teacher.

 

The only reason I suggest this book is because I have first hand experience and it gives you names written down with their styles so maybe a newbie can use that to search up some great blues clips.

 

I think you and I are essentially on the same side of this argument just taking different approaches to it to the same end. I guess all I can say to whomever started this thread is listen to Milod first, and anyone else here including me second.

 

Still I hope you enjoy the book, it's great for playing along with when you're feeling like you're playing the same thing over and over again.

[milod]

Brandon...

 

What can I add but nothing.

 

<grin>

 

Well... except that after I lost my front teeth at 20, I haven't picked up a trumpet. <even bigger grin>

 

 

 

m

[BoyVader]

Just learn the Blues, don't live 'em.

 

But then you will have no feel..like Gary Moore.... :unsure:

[milod]

BoyVader makes a good point.

 

In fact, I'd been thinking of some sorta comment along similar lines...

 

Frankly I don't think that one needs to be black from a low class and/or rural background to do blues. Or a white sharecropper of roughly equivalent status. (A white woman from north Mississippi about my age told me once that she and friends and relatives weren't allowed in local stores in the 40s and early 1950s 'cuz they were "po whaht trash keyuds.")

 

I do think that each of us has had sufficient adolescent angst to qualify for the basics of "living the blues." That's just normal upbringing.

 

Personally I would agree with T.S. Eliot's perspective on poetry - which is what a blues lyric is by any definition - that it's not an escape to emotion but rather an escape from emotion.

 

I remember one night with a nice new cassette tape recorder - my first and at the time terribly expensive toy to go with guitar practice - I'd had a bit of grain spirits and had the blues and I recorded some of my stuff. The guitar technique wasn't all that affected, but golly, the lyric was schmaltzy and vocal technique was horrid.

 

Then you listen to the old blues "masters" whose technique might not be considered to match some of the firebrands of the second half of the 20th century and you hear the real difference: Those guys (and ladies) certainly knew and remembered tough times, but the best of them weren't weeping and moaning. They were reflecting on tough times or on occasion recalling good times and describing them poetically according to their own light, technical and verbal abilities. The "masters" had more than their share of the latter, for sure. If they seemed to be "shouters," consider what it would be like playing all acoustic for a dance with 50-100 people in a barn.

 

Eliot's poetry and essays on poetic criticism is written in a rather "high class style" with allusions current readers may or may not "get," but I think it's incredibly appropriate for one to consider on the subject of "blues." You don't want to necessarily dissect poetry or the blues like a frog in high school biology, but it's kinda nice to know what to expect before even considering a scalpel.

 

Consider, for example, the almost journalistic approach of this famous blues:

 

When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night

When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night

Then trouble's takin' place in the lowlands at night

I woke up this mornin', can't even get out of my door

I woke up this mornin', can't even get out of my door

There's been enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she want to go

Then they rowed a little boat about five miles 'cross the pond

Then they rowed a little boat about five miles 'cross the pond

I packed all my clothes, throwed them in and they rowed me along

When it thunders and lightnin' and when the wind begins to blow

When it thunders and lightnin' and the wind begins to blow

There's thousands of people ain't got no place to go

Then I went and stood upon some high old lonesome hill

Then I went and stood upon some high old lonesome hill

Then looked down on the house were I used to live

Backwater blues done call me to pack my things and go

Backwater blues done call me to pack my things and go

'Cause my house fell down and I can't live there no more

Mmm, I can't move no more

Mmm, I can't move no more

There ain't no place for a poor old girl to go

 

m

[Shnate McDuanus]

This is all great stuff.

 

Here's my take on it:

 

http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/55011-rules-of-the-blues/

[Big_Guitarra]

Thanks for the tips folks .. all good

 

just remembered, about 25 years ago a few of us were working in the restaurant industry. we would get together for a few after the evening shift ended and listen to the old blues records my friend borrowed from the library. These old records were some of the earliest recorded blues I recall. Sorry but cannot remember any specific albums.