The blues has influenced almost every genre of music. All the great guitar players of our time have been influenced to some degree by the blues. The music theory involved in playing the blues is rather simple, but the feeling that can be applied to playing the blues is what makes it so popular.

The 12 bar blues progression:

If you want to learn how to play blues, you need to know the 12 bar blues progression. Just as its’ name implies, it is made up of 12 bars (measures) of music. the 12 bars just keep repeating. The most common chord progression would be the I, IV, and V chords of the key that you want to play in.

The progression looks like this:

I / I / I / I / IV / IV / I / I / V / IV / I / I

So if you wanted to play in the key of E, the progression would be:

E / E / E / E / A / A / E / E / B7 / A / E / E

This is the basic 12 bar blues progression, but there are variations that can be used. One common variation would be to substitute the last chord with the V chord. So in the example above the last E chord would be replaced with a B7.

This is what the progression would look like in the keys of A and D:

Key of A: A / A / A / A / D / D / A / A / E / D / A / A

Key of D: D / D / D / D / G / G / D / D / A / G / D / D

The simplicity of this progression and the fact that it just keeps repeating itself is what makes the blues popular with musicians. As long as everyone is in the same key, you are able to jam together without actually knowing a specific song.

What really makes the blues though is the feeling that is put into the playing. This is another reason the blues are so enjoyable to play. You can really put your soul into it. Practice the 12 bar progression in different keys and using different rhythms.

Just use your own feeling and you will be surprised with what you come up with.

The Blues Scale:

Knowing the blues scale is the other half to playing the blues.

The blues scale is really the pentatonic scale with the flatted 3rd note added.

Pentatonic scale

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

-X–|—-|-X–|—-

-X–|—-|-X–|—-

-X–|—-|-X–|—-

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

Blues Scale

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

-X–|—-|-X–|-O–

-X–|—-|-X–|—-

-X–|-O–|-X–|—-

-X–|—-|—-|-X–

The first diagram shows one of the patterns for the pentatonic guitar scale. The second diagram shows the flatted 3rd added, indicated by the O’s. These added notes are also sometimes referred to as the blue notes.

Practice this scale forward and backward. Try using some bends and slides. Remember, the key to playing the blues is the feeling you put into it.

Ed Haas is a guitar player of thirty years and is the webmaster of learnitguitar.com.  Visit his website for more information on how to play the blues – Article Source: ArticleRich.com

1. Prepare and rehearse. Know everybody else’s lyrics, so that you can fill in and define parts of the song to get or keep the crowd hyped. Rehearsal is important in order to show that your a professional or on the brink of becoming a pro, you’d got to know where the other person should be onstage.

2. The lead vocalist should almost always take center stage, then move from right to left interacting with the crowd. Always, go center stage when your verse starts this brings the attention to you, especially if you have multiple people on stage.

3. When being the leading vocalist of a song whether it’s a hype song or mellow, use apart of your body to keep the beat or rhythm of the music such as; dancing, moving the mic to the beat, move your hips to the beat, etc…. This shows the crowd your into it, and pulls them into your world.

4. Setting up your song- People want to be able to connect with you as a performer. Talk to them, tell them a short story about yourself that leads up to a song. Either, the story can be funny or serious, as long as it leads into a song that emphasizes the feelings of the story, your audience will be able to connect with you.

5. Have fun- the audience knows when your nervous or having a bad day. Being able to perform in front of people should get you amp’d anyways. But most importantly have fun, show the crowd that your enjoying yourself, and they will enjoy right along with you.

TIPS:

A. Rehearsal is the building block of all performances. It can bring you great ideas and x out the bad ones. Rehearsal is important because it makes your shows tight, meaning like a well taught karate move, you do it without thought or thinking. Rehearsal is the only thing that can make your show cohesive and eliminates the stars from the fakers.

B. Mirrors- If you have the means to do it. Mirrors can be great in fine tuning a act. As in step 1 on this “how to”, in a mirror you can see where everybody is and what there doing when your in the middle of your verse.

C. Back to rehearsals- If you ever get pre-stage jitters rehearsal can fix that. Just when you rehearse imagine yourself and how’d you want to feel in front of a audience, even the nervousness. It will help you cope with.

WARNING

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT turn your back to the audience unless it’s incorporated in your show plans. If you turn your back it may show that your disinterested in the performance and you may loose touch with your audience.

DO NOT try to get the crowd hype and follow you if the crowd is honestly not feeling you yet. You may totally loose touch and you may be faced with a crowd full of blank stares. Or worse, you may loose your mojo totally and get the infamous booooooooooo…

http://www.lokey210.blogspot.com

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