After I got mine, I spent many hours just playing over the tracks and enjoying the variety. Some of my personal favorites are the jazzy_x ones (there are about 5 of them along those lines.)

I realize though, that I’m always talking about how important it is for you to know what chords you are playing over and modify your scales accordingly. But there were no charts given with the 50 blues tracks.

So I made some myself, and you can have them. Just right click the link below and choose “save as…” to save the .pdf files to your computer

• The Charts for the 50 Blues “freebie” tracks (there’s 5 I think)
• Some soloing tips and suggestions for the “freebie” tracks
• The charts for the full 50 blues download
• Soloing tips and scales for the 50 blues download

If you are on the fence about whether to get the tracks, maybe seeing what chords are there will help you make up your mind. It’s about the best I can do without being able to just give them to you.

Again, you should at least sign up and get the free ones. They’re great to play over.

I downloaded the free jam tracks that they give away and I was really impressed by them. 4 out of the 5 sound awesome, 1 is just okay. You can still use it, but it’s not as “pro” sounding as the other ones. Whatever…

I think these would be GREAT for you guys (and girls) out there looking for more stuff to jam over, so I thought I’d give you a link.

But wait…. there’s more…

There were no chord charts included so I made some here (right click to download the .pdf)

Then I got to thinking… well if I don’t give you some ideas as to what to play over them, then what fun would I be? So I wrote out some soloing strategies and ideas here (right click again.)

Don’t forget, if you’re stuck on a chord, it might be in my blues chord chart

Have fun! I have the other 50 tracks, but I haven’t gone through them all yet. I’ll let you know how I like them.

Griff

A few days ago I uploaded a MASSIVE amount of new content to the Playing Through The Blues members area.

Imagine taking all the stuff that was in the current PTTB, and doing the same thing with chords and rhythm.

How about over 90 minutes of new video footage?!

How about 18 HUGE new lessons?!

Here’s some of the things you’ll see in the new course material:

• How to play 7th chords (the most common blues chords) in 4 different ways, all over the neck
• How to play 9th chords in 3 different ways, all over the neck
• How to groove like Clapton does in ‘I’m Tore Down’
• How to use your right hand to get that cool pop like ZZ Top does in ‘La Grange’
• How to get your right hand “train rhythm” happening like Stevie does on ‘Pride & Joy’
• How to make your blues chords smaller, easier, and cooler … instantly (this one trick will get you a call back to your next jam session)
• At least 4 blues comping patterns (think – what you’ll play behind the singer or soloist) that you can take to the bank and use tonight on just about any tune you play
• How to substitute 9th, 11th, 13th, and altered chords in place of your tired old 7th chords.
• How to play through a minor blues like ‘The Thrill is Gone’ by B.B. King.
• The easiest and best riff to play over a slow blues in any key – and how to speed it up for a killer shuffle (think ‘Empty Arms’ by SRV)
• The Jam Session Standards – Blues in E, Blues in A, Blues in D. Find your area’s next open blues jam and get over there, or call your buddies and tell them to bring the refreshments.
• How to bring Jazz and Blues together to really add cool twists to your rhythm and chord playing.
• How funk and blues together create a killer groove that folks love to listen to.

And, of course, there’s a bunch more stuff I can’t think of off the top of my head.

Oh, and one more thing, the price is still the same…. for now.

But I’ll be honest, it won’t be for long.

If I were to put all this stuff in the real world it would be over 150 pages of printed text, 3 DVDs, and 2 CDs. My current price of $37 is a joke. So it’s going up to $47, which is still a joke when you figure this is like a YEAR’s worth of free lessons which would cost you a grand total of $3120.

A lot of my friends have been reading my nonsense now for a long time, and I really appreciate it. So check back here over the next couple of days and I’ll post some stuff from the new material so you can make an educated decision on whether or not it’s for you.

Bottom line, if you practice and follow my stuff, you’ll play good and blow people away. I have students that started on this stuff less than a year ago that now just sit down with a clapton cd and play along. They’re having a ball and I want the same for you.

If you’re the kind of guy who collects books and DVDs and internet courses and doesn’t practice, then please DON’T BUY MY STUFF. Honestly, I don’t want the guilt (my wife’s Italian and therefore I am by marriage – the guilt comes with the territory.)

Also, if you’re a total beginner, this ain’t for you. However, if you at least know a few chords and can strum a bit, you should be good to go now, and I definitely could not say that before. The first 5 lessons in the rhythm & chords module will give you a really solid place to start with the blues. The rest are just really fun.

Alright, enough of my ranting, I’ll post more stuff soon.

As always, leave comments so I can answer questions or make changes/additions.

So I made a PDF of many good, useable blues chords.

Blues Guitar Chord Chart

You’ll notice that I talk about partial chords. Partial chords are particularly important when playing with a band because you don’t want to get in the way of the bass or drums.

Usually all you have to do is remove the bottom couple of strings (or string) from the chord and you have what I affectionately call a partial chord. In reality, there’s still plenty of chord there.

The most important notes in a blues guitar chord are the 3rd and 7th of the chord. If that doesn’t make sense to you, I’m referring to the scale tones that make up the chord.

For a 7th chord, which is short for dominant 7th, and is the most common type of chord in blues, there is a root, 3rd, 5th, and flatted 7th tone of the major scale. So for C major, the notes are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C and the notes of the chord would be C, E, G, Bb.

It’s really not that important to know all of that right now, you just need to work with your chords and get them under your fingers. Hopefully my little blues guitar chord chart will help you out with that.

So… I have for you a video showing you not only what Riffmaster does, but more importantly, how to use it for the most benefit to your playing.

The examples shown are from Playing Through The Blues, of course, but they would work for any sound files you have. Just click on the image below to see the video…

It’s REALLY handy to be able to loop certain sections of a song, and even slow it down or change the key.

Let’s say you’re working on one particular solo, you can load the mp3 of that song, or play it from a CD. Then you select the part that you want to loop (visually on the screen, cool!) and select how much you want to slow it down.

One of the handiest parts is the tuning function. If you’re doing an SRV or Hendrix tune that’s in Eb, and your guitar is in E, just tune the song up 1/2 step. If you tune down, but you’re doing a tune in standard tuning, just tune the song down, and not your guitar. I’ve pretty much gotten to where I use this for nearly every single lesson I teach, every day.

Here’s a screenshot for you -