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

While there’s nothing wrong with learning your favorite song - I mean, let’s face it, we all started playing guitar because of some cool song we heard (it was ‘Back In Black’ for me) - but there’s a problem with the logic.

You see, learning how to play your guitar, and learning how to play a certain song, are not one in the same. In fact, they aren’t even close.

While there are things to be gained from learning songs, those things are best learned after you have the basics covered and you know what you are working with.

I’ll give you an example from some of my own students over the past couple of years….

I had one student, we’ll call him Steve, who wanted NOTHING to do with learning chord shapes or scales or anything like that. These things are the building blocks of all music, but the only way this guy would play anything at all was if it was a song that he chose.

Of course, I explained why that wasn’t going to be the fastest way to get to where he really wanted to go, but he didn’t care. He thought that if he learned enough songs, he’d be able to play well.

I have another student, we’ll call him Dave. Dave is about the biggest Clapton fan I’ve ever seen. And when we started, all he wanted to learn was Clapton tunes.

The difference between Dave and Steve is that Dave was willing to say “okay, you’re the teacher, and I believe you when you say that this is better.”

So I started Dave on my system, and Steve kept plugging away learning songs.

Steve’s been with me for over 2 years, and still can’t play a blues scale or a pentatonic scale reliably. Some weeks he can, some he can’t. He can’t name most of the chords he can play, which makes them useless in a jam session because if someone says “play a C7″ he needs them to show him which chord that is.

Forget soloing or improvising for Steve… without knowing what chords he’s playing over and how to play the scales even if he did, he’s unable to do any of that.

Dave’s been with me for just over a year, and has gone through almost my entire system. We’ve taken some detours along the way and learned a few tunes, but over the last few months I haven’t had to show him any tunes because HE CAN FIGURE THEM OUT FOR HIMSELF.

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STOP A MINUTE AND THINK ABOUT THIS
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Steve still can’t learn anything on his own, and Dave doesn’t hardly need me for that anymore. I have effectively taught myself out of a job… just the way I like it.

To be honest, Dave’s been able to jam over any Clapton tune he likes for a few months now. I’ve heard him just noodle over stuff when he though I wasn’t listening and he sounds awesome.

Dave still comes to lessons, but are working on more advanced concepts and things outside the scope of the traditional blues thing.

Oh, and Dave doesn’t practice more than Steve. In fact, Dave probably plays less than Steve. Dave is older than Steve and has substantially more family obligations that Steve.

As I said earlier, there’s nothing wrong with learning your favorite songs. But you need to keep your eyes and ears out for some certain things..

1. Can you name every single chord in the song you’re playing?
2. If you’re learning the solo, can you see what scale, and what fingering patterns the licks are from?
3. Can you see what approach the solo the artist is taking?

In all likelihood the answer to these questions will be “no” and you will have not actually learned anything but the song itself. Not only that, but you’ll have taken way longer to learn it than you would have if you already knew the chords and the scales and simply had to recognize them when you heard them.

I transcribe things for my students day in and day out, 6 days a week. Many times I don’t even need to pick up my guitar, I just hit play and start writing. I don’t have perfect pitch, and although I took ear training in college, I was able to do this long before college (it was the one class I aced easily…)

How can I do this? Simple, I recognize everything I hear as a certain chord, scale, or melodic idea. I’ve studied many different approaches and I’ve learned something from all of them. I know, based on the style of music, what approaches are likely, what chords are likely, and what scales are likely to come up. I’m rarely surprised.

So if you’ve been playing for a long time and are not where you think you should be, maybe it’s time to try a different approach. Now, if you don’t practice, no one can help you. But if you spend 20-30 minutes a day on your instrument, and you learn your chords and scales, and you take the time to ‘noodle’ with the things you’ve practiced on that day, you will get better.

Remember, anyone can do this.

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.

2 answers were the overwhelming favorites.

1. Get a DVD/printed copy of the program going
2. Add “more stuff” to the course to make it not necessarily so blues specific.

It’s likely to be months before I am able to get Playing Through The Blues in a DVD format. So, I looked around and noticed that pretty much the only option to most of you is Dan Denley’s Blues Guitar Secrets.

I got a copy of it, and have actually had it for a few weeks now, but haven’t really gotten around to really going through it.

First and foremost, from a lead guitar persepective, it’s a little light. From a more intermediate/beginner standpoint, it’s a winner.

Blues Guitar Secrets contains all of the stuff you should and would expect:

• all 5 boxes (patterns) of the pentatonic/blues scale
• some lick examples of how the boxes/patterns can be used
• how to play several key blues progressions
• what makes a 12 bar blues
• a cd full of jam tracks to practice soloing over
• Discussion of blues “theory” as far as scales and chords are concerned

There are also a couple of bonus things like his “quick start” guide which might be handy if you’re the type who likes your practice routine mapped out for you.

He also provides a CDROM of his explanation of Blues Guitar Theory. This is fine, but since the main point here is to have it on DVD, having it on CDROM sort of defeats the purpose since you have to be by your computer.

For printed materials, most everything that is on the DVD’s is transcribed note for note in the accompanying book. There is also another book which outlines how to play the scales and has a few extra licks.

Personally, I would have taken the second book and filled it up with more solos and lead examples. This is where the course really doesn’t follow through. To me, the main thing to getting “the sound” is in how you approach the blues progression. From Dan’s point of view, it appears that just having a few cool 2 bar licks is going to help with that, and I disagree.

At no point does he discuss using the major versions of the pentatonic/blues scales, or mixing them up properly in a blues progression. That concept is a large part of what makes “the sound” in blues, and many chapters and solo examples are devoted to it in Playing Through The Blues.

For many people, Playing Through The Blues is basically like starting from where Blues Guitar Secrets leaves off.

Bottom line, if you want it on DVD, this is as good as it gets for what I can see. If you are still struggling a little bit with blues rhythms and chords, this would be an ideal place to go. When you are done with it, you’ll be in great shape.

If you can already play a ton of blues rhythms, and maybe even solo a little, this will be a disappointment, and I’m sorry that I don’t have better news.

Visit the Blues Guitar Secrets Website

This video from youtube makes the answer simple - know these chords.

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 -