Hey it's Nate Savage here and welcome to video #5 of the Blues Guitar Quick-Start Series.
In the last lesson, we went over the most basic blues riff that you're going to learn.
And in this lesson, I'm going to show you how to dress that blues riff up a little more
to make it a bit more interesting. And this is a great example of what a little creativity
could do for your rhythm blues guitar playing. Ok, this riff has the same basic structure
as the last basic riff that we went over. But we're going to add a few notes here and
there and a little bit more motion to make things again a little more interesting sounding.
So, we had, again we're starting off to the 12-bar blues progression so the first four
bars are going to be over an E chord, right? So, the last one we started with just the
E power chord. This one's going to be an E power chord too but it's going to be the three
note version of an E power chord. So, you're going to grab the 2nd fret of the A and D
strings with your first finger. And those are going to be your first 2 eighth notes.
With the muting in, remember from the last lesson, we had the muting.
So, do that twice and then you're going to keep your index finger where it is. Put your
third finger on the 4th fret of the A string. And play 2 more swung eighth notes with the
muting in there, right? Now, leave those two fingers where they are and come down on the
5th fret of the A string with your pinky and play 2 more swung eighth notes. Now, take
your pinky off, leave your third finger where it is. And basically, that's the foundation
riff over your E chords so you have 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and that's the first measure.
After that, you're going to kind of start off the same on the next measure. You have
1 and 2 and when you get to the 3rd beat of measure 2 of the 2nd measure, you're going
to play just a regular E power chord. And then we have a little tag riff that we're
going to learn here so you have...keep your index finger on that B note right down the
2nd fret of the A. Play that note with the upstroke. And then you're going to come play
the 3rd fret of the low E string with your middle finger, with a downstroke then hammer-on
to the 4th fret with your third finger. So, so far you have...
And to finish this little tagline off go back to the B note on the 2nd fret of the A string
with your first finger. So the whole little tagline is...So up, downstroke, hammer-on,
upstroke. So, that takes care of the 2 measures of E the first 2 measures. So you have...
From there, you're just going to repeat that entire thing. So, this is a 2 bar riff. So
it takes up the first 2 bars of E, the next 2 bar is in this 12-bar blues progression
are E too. So you're just going to repeat that whole thing. Play the entire riff twice.
When we get to bar V, we have to switch to our IV chord, in this case, it's an A chord.
So, we're going to apply the exact same idea but it's going to be a tiny bit different.
I'll show you what I mean. First of all, you're going to play an A, open A chord but you're
going to make it with your index finger across the D, G and B strings. And this time, we're
going to be strumming the inside four strings on the guitar. And you're going to leave both
E strings out but for the first eighth note, you're going to just play that chord twice
just the inside four strings of the guitar. From there, the shape is a little bit harder
but your middle finger is going to come down on the 3rd fret of the B string and your third
finger is going to come down on the 4th fret of the D string. And that's going to be your
2 and. So 2 more swung eighth notes here. From there, leave all three of those fingers
where they are come down on the 5th fret of the D string with your pinky. And that's going
to be your 3 and. For your 4 and, take your pinky off and
play 2 more swung eighth notes. So, that's your whole first measure over the IV chord.
For the second measure of the IV chord, it's going to start off the same way. 2 swung eighth
notes for the A then put your second and third fingers down for 2 and. And then on three,
hit just the A. From there, you're going to play the little tag riff to finish off this
measure of the A chord or the IV chord. So, for the 2 measures over the IV chord, you're going to have this.
And that's a lot of information; you’re going to want to
take some time to get that under your fingers. Don't feel like you have to have it down all
on this video but once you get to the next 2 measures you're going to have your I chord
again. So just repeat the same riff but this time since it’s only 2 bars or 2 measures.
You only have to play it once.
Next in the 12-bar blues progression is the V chord. And for this riff, I just left this the same. It's exact same thing as the standard
or easy 12-bar blues riff. Just go to a B power chord for 1 measure and play the riff. From
From there, go to the same A chord shape. We have a IV chord coming up, right? So play 1 measure
or what will be the first measure of the riff over the A chord or the IV chord. Now, we
go back to the I chord. So play, just do the first measure of the I chord riff. Now we're
going to end on the V chords, so go back to your B power chord and we're going to start
off with the regular V riff or B riff in this case. But that's all we're going to play,
so you have 1 and 2 and 3, end on 3 on the power chord. And then just play the little
tag riff again to bring you back around to the beginning of the progression. And then
you start the entire progression over again. Let me put that all together for you and let
you hear what it sounds like over the jam track.
This riff is just a little example of what you can do when you mess around with the basic
blues riff that we learn in the last lesson. Take some time and experiment with this riff.
Once you get it down, you can play it over the jam track. And see if you can just, you
know change a few notes around. Change a few rhythms up and come up with your own riff
too. Pull up the jam track, whichever one you think suits you best, 70 beats per minute
or a 100 beats per minute. Concentrate on getting this groove down. Concentrate on your
timing. The slower one will probably a little bit harder to fall on the groove with but
it would be a little bit easier to keep up with the notes. The faster one would be a
little bit easier to keep up with the groove but the notes are whizzing by so it would be a
little bit of a challenge that way. Thanks for watching this video. In the next
lesson, what we're going to do is switch our focus from rhythm blues guitar to lead blues
guitar. And you're going to learn arguably the most important scale of your guitar career
and that's the blues scale. So, if you have any questions, you can leave
them here in the comments or e-mail me nate@guitarsystem.com. I'll see you.