Rules of The Blues

[Shnate McDuanus]

NOTE: These are definitely not "rules." They are suggestions. They arrive from my own personal experience and from conversations I have had with others on the subject.

 

1. Feel it before you play it.

 

It means nothing to an audience if you rehash every blues lick you've ever heard as fast as you can and repeated as precisely and as perfectly as possible. If you're not feeling it, they will know.

 

Robert Cray feels the blues.

 

2. Get your hands on the beat.

 

The best blues is more than just melody. To play compelling blues, lock in to the rhythm--the beat. You can do this with or without a rhythm section. If you're playing with a drummer and a bassist, tie your hands to their rhythm. If you're going solo, keep the rhythm in your head, your hands, your feet, etc.. It will do you no good to play a bunch of disjointed licks if they have no rhythmic context.

 

The great John Lee Hooker didn't need a rhythm section to play with the beat.

 

3. Make it your own.

 

Hey, the blues isn't just a chord progression and a pentatonic scale--it's a feeling, and while it's completely elusive, you just know when you hear it. Albert King was very funky, but he played the blues. T-Bone Walker was very jazzy, but he played the blues. Gary Moore is a rocker, but he plays the blues. Alvin Lee is a full-on shredder, but he plays the blues. Make it your own--there's no "sound" to the blues, but when it's blues, you'll know it.

 

They both play the blues. They play it differently, but they both play the blues.

 

4. Know your roots.

 

Even if you make it your own, know your roots. At the very least, it can help you get a push in the right direction when you're creatively stumped. Listening to a W.C. Handy or a Tampa Red piece can give you a whole new perspective.

 

Roots. Know them.

 

5. If all else fails...

 

Imitate your favorite. Dozens of bluesmen imitate Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, Elmore James...to an extent, everyone imitates Son House, whether they know it or not. Don't be ashamed in borrowing something from somewhere--it will become your own, because you're playing it.

 

->->

John Mayer imitated SRV who imitated Freddie King...and so on.

 

6. Make a guitar face.

 

Just do it.

 

If the licks are righteous, the guitar face will be glorious.

 

I hope you all enjoyed. Feel free to contribute.

-Jon.

[Tman5293]

Not sure if it means anything, but I'd like to add to the know your roots section:

 

Know the lineage of musical genres:

 

Classical - Jazz - Blues - Rock N' Roll/Funk - Hard Rock - All Genres of Metal

 

No matter what genre you currently play, if your looking to play the blues all you have to do is retrace your steps. Unless you play Classical or Jazz, in which case all you have to do is look up some blues scales and intensify your playing.

 

I believe this principle can be applied to learning any modern genre of music. Hope that it is of some use!

[Shnate McDuanus]

TMan,

 

That's definitely a very valid point...although there is some dispute in musicological circles regarding the origins or Jazz and Blues in regards to what came first. I've heard many comments along the lines of "Louis Armstrong/Louis Jordan/Fletcher Henderson/___________ composed and performed Jazz music, but what must be remembered is that Jazz is rooted deeply in the vernacular of the blues," and so on and so forth. On the other hand, I haven't heard many comments leading to the opposite notion. My feeling is that, really, they developed essentially together and co-dependently. It's not to say that "Jazz came first and gave way to the Blues" or that "the Blues was the foundation for Jazz," rather that "Jazz and the Blues developed from a common cultural focal point, and share both essential similarities and essential differences." Again, there's a lot of Jazz that's technically Blues, and a lot of Blues (listen to T-Bone Walker and tell me you disagree) that's fundamentally Jazz.

[Tman5293]

TMan,

 

That's definitely a very valid point...although there is some dispute in musicological circles regarding the origins or Jazz and Blues in regards to what came first. I've heard many comments along the lines of "Louis Armstrong/Louis Jordan/Fletcher Henderson/___________ composed and performed Jazz music, but what must be remembered is that Jazz is rooted deeply in the vernacular of the blues," and so on and so forth. On the other hand, I haven't heard many comments leading to the opposite notion. My feeling is that, really, they developed essentially together and co-dependently. It's not to say that "Jazz came first and gave way to the Blues" or that "the Blues was the foundation for Jazz," rather that "Jazz and the Blues developed from a common cultural focal point, and share both essential similarities and essential differences." Again, there's a lot of Jazz that's technically Blues, and a lot of Blues (listen to T-Bone Walker and tell me you disagree) that's fundamentally Jazz.

 

All very true.

 

However, if you look back on history and look at what was considered appropriate during each decade beginning around 1880 all the way through 2010 you see that society slowly begins to accept more irrational things as okay. I don't know about you, but I consider the Blues as more, for lack of a better word, outrageous than Jazz, which leads me to believe that blues came immediately following the big Jazz era (circa 1910-1930). I am well aware that Jazz continued to be popular through the late 1940's. But since Blues began it's development during the 1930's, I would say that that is when Jazz began to decline and Blues began to take over till the mid sixties when it became all about Rock N' Roll. I see the Blues a bridge between Jazz and Rock N' Roll. They're all connected.

[milod]

I think you young guys are doing well in thinking about this stuff rather than just attempting to do a note-for-note copy of somebody.

 

(I personally like lotsa styles of blues - depending on the lyric and whence the concept came.)

 

There's no question in my mind that Blues and "Country," later "jazz" and "swing" and "rock" as well as most "pop" music have come to us today from a unique musical melting pot found nowhere else in the world. The mixing came also in a period of incredible leaps in technology that encouraged and sped the mixing of musical traditions.

 

That even plays a role in the fact that American electric and steel string flat top guitars are the world standard.

 

Keep thinking and studying... please.

 

m

[Big_Guitarra]

Great tips folks.....for a newbie like myself to think about while I am improving my playing.

[TommyK]

Rule 101:

 

You can't play blues if you've never owned a pawn shop guit tar. You must learn on a Harmony POS to be able to appreciate what the blues are about. So, hang up the LP and get thyself to the Good Will store.

B)

[Witmer]

Rules for Singing or Playing the Blues, A Primer. . .

 

1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning..."

 

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

 

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes...sort of like: "Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, And she weighs 500 pounds."

 

4. The Blues is not about choice. You're stuck in a ditch, you're stuck in a ditch - ain't no way out.

 

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train, blues NEVER go on the northbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running! .

 

Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

 

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

 

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

 

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause an alligator be chomping on it is.

 

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

 

10. Good places for the Blues: a. highway b. jailhouse

 

Bad places for the Blues: a. Nordstrom b. gallery openings c. Ivy League institutions d. golf courses

 

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it for the last 6 months.

 

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: a. you're older than dirt b. you're blind c. you shot a man in Memphis

 

Not if: a. you have all your teeth b. you were once blind but now can see c. the man in Memphis lived d. you have a 401K or trust fund

 

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got leg up on the blues.

 

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: a. muddy water b. nasty black coffee

 

The following are NOT Blues beverages: a. Perrier b. Chardonnay c. Snapple d. Slim Fast

 

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

 

16. Some Blues names for women: a. Sadie b. Big Mama c. Bessie d. Fat River Dumpling

 

17. Some Blues names for men: a. Joe b. Willie c. Little Willie d. Big Willie

 

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

 

[SG FAN]

I got pulled over by the highway patrol in Memphis, does that count???

[morty]

Rules for Singing or Playing the Blues, A Primer. . .

 

1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning..."

 

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

 

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes...sort of like: "Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, And she weighs 500 pounds."

 

4. The Blues is not about choice. You're stuck in a ditch, you're stuck in a ditch - ain't no way out.

 

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train, blues NEVER go on the northbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running! .

 

Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

 

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

 

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

 

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause an alligator be chomping on it is.

 

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

 

10. Good places for the Blues: a. highway b. jailhouse

 

Bad places for the Blues: a. Nordstrom b. gallery openings c. Ivy League institutions d. golf courses

 

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it for the last 6 months.

 

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: a. you're older than dirt b. you're blind c. you shot a man in Memphis

 

Not if: a. you have all your teeth b. you were once blind but now can see c. the man in Memphis lived d. you have a 401K or trust fund

 

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got leg up on the blues.

 

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: a. muddy water b. nasty black coffee

 

The following are NOT Blues beverages: a. Perrier b. Chardonnay c. Snapple d. Slim Fast

 

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

 

16. Some Blues names for women: a. Sadie b. Big Mama c. Bessie d. Fat River Dumpling

 

17. Some Blues names for men: a. Joe b. Willie c. Little Willie d. Big Willie

 

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

 

[laugh] [thumbup] [flapper]

[morty]

haha! did you paste that, or type it?

[Artie Owl]

Blues ain't no riddle man, to me it makes good good sense! Good sense..

[Witmer]

haha! did you paste that, or type it?

 

Pasted it. Saw that a while ago, and a quick google search turned it back up.

[Tman5293]

Blues ain't no riddle man, to me it makes good good sense! Good sense..

 

No. You can't change AC/DC's lyrics. Unless of course your a loser.

[dem00n]

Even the greats wrote songs with "wtf" lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgYlmiKBAlY

 

Not sure if most of you know what it really means.

[feldkeen4]

The roots to every rock and roll song ever made come from this song right here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ZW08zOkYU

[Artie Owl]

No. You can't change AC/DC's lyrics. Unless of course your a loser.

I can write whatever I'd like, any similarities between any lyrics alive or otherwise are purely coincidental.

[Riffster]

All very true.

 

However, if you look back on history and look at what was considered appropriate during each decade beginning around 1880 all the way through 2010 you see that society slowly begins to accept more irrational things as okay. I don't know about you, but I consider the Blues as more, for lack of a better word, outrageous than Jazz, which leads me to believe that blues came immediately following the big Jazz era (circa 1910-1930). I am well aware that Jazz continued to be popular through the late 1940's. But since Blues began it's development during the 1930's, I would say that that is when Jazz began to decline and Blues began to take over till the mid sixties when it became all about Rock N' Roll. I see the Blues a bridge between Jazz and Rock N' Roll. They're all connected.

 

Maybe, remember that both Blues and Jazz were not played on a guitar when they started, so wasn't Rock n' Roll.

'

There is a big difference between "Rock Around the Clock" and "Great Balls of Fire" and Chuck Berry's...well anything. Same with Blues, I like the very early Barrelhouse Blues played on piano but to me Blues starts with the Guitar/Resonator. Jazz? well I am not sure when Jazz guitar made an entrance, they were not loud enough until electrified and in a big Jazz band you cannot compete acoustically. Jazz players were simply strumming as hard as they could.

[Artie Owl]

dem00n, did you ever listen to "Me and Mr. Johnson"? The Clapton covers of Robert Johnson?

[Shnate McDuanus]

Maybe, remember that both Blues and Jazz were not played on a guitar when they started, so wasn't Rock n' Roll.

'

There is a big difference between "Rock Around the Clock" and "Great Balls of Fire" and Chuck Berry's...well anything. Same with Blues, I like the very early Barrelhouse Blues played on piano but to me Blues starts with the Guitar/Resonator. Jazz? well I am not sure when Jazz guitar made an entrance, they were not loud enough until electrified and in a big Jazz band you cannot compete acoustically. Jazz players were simply strumming as hard as they could.

 

True. The guitar's entrance into the Jazz world as a lead/melody instrument proper began with electric amplification. However, Freddie Green was performing Jazz rhythm guitar with a heavily-modified acoustic archtop as early as 1937. He raised the bridge up very high, so that the sound would carry further and louder. It was a style of guitar playing which, in Jazz, is not utilized much anymore with the advent of electric amplification, but in its own way it was just as effective and in ways it gave the guitar a place which is more unique than that which it typically maintains as a "melody" instrument these days. It took advantage of one of the guitar's greatest and most unique strengths--the player's ability to form chords with a certain type of tone that only a guitar can achieve, and a specific sort of sound and feel that a piano can come close to, but not even the guitar's nearest relatives can match. In that role, it served almost as a sort of chordal percussion in the hands of Freddie Green.

 

W.C. Handy's idea of the Blues was certainly not a guitar-based form. Handy, a pianist, trumpetist and cornetist, wrote "St. Louis Blues," one of the most important and recognizable tunes in the Jazz idiom, and a piece which, although structurally a blues, is generally performed in a sort of Ragtime feel, almost. Of course, he wasn't the first composer to compose a twelve-bar blues, but he was one of the most important figures in bringing the Blues into the wider (i.e. "whiter") American consciousness. Of course, the Blues has a long history which is intertwined very much with the history of Jazz, essentially developing in large part out of the African-American spiritual music and work music traditions, with influence from various groups of Americans of European descent (namely Irish-Americans) into a form of music which combines West African musical concepts with Western European musical concepts. Anyway, now I'm rambling again...

 

Yeah, it's hard to clearly chart out the history of American music. We need a musicologist on this thread.

[Mr. Natural]

Rule 101:

 

You can't play blues if you've never owned a pawn shop guit tar. You must learn on a Harmony POS to be able to appreciate what the blues are about. So, hang up the LP and get thyself to the Good Will store.

B)

 

...and how about a Sears Twin-12 amp?

[Mr. Natural]

Rules for Singing or Playing the Blues, A Primer...

 

[17. Some Blues names for men: a. Joe b. Willie c. Little Willie d. Big Willie....

 

 

What? No BLIND Willie?

[Tman5293]

I can write whatever I'd like, any similarities between any lyrics alive or otherwise are purely coincidental.

 

And therefore you admit to being a loser.

[WahKeen]

Goodness...........

[Tman5293]

Goodness...........