blues lessons for classic players

[Klaus G]

I play classic guitar together with a flute player
I can memorize and play some of your lessons after much practize und time
but i find it difficult to improvize with blues feeling and it sounds more like classik
Your lessons help me with the theory and the technique
but i would like some lessons to develop the blues feeling when improvising
Greetings Klaus

[sunjamr]

Welcome Klaus! No lessons required to develop a blues feeling. The pathway to develop a blues feeling is to listen to as much blues music as you can. A newborn baby has no knowledge of any kind of music, but little by little they learn about the music around them just by listening to it. Some skilled blues musicians say there is no such thing as an original blues lick, and that today every blues lick you hear has already been played by some other blues musician. So a good place for you to start is by memorizing some blues licks that you like. Then the next step is to learn to “cut and paste” those licks as you practice improv with a backing track. Alternatively, just dig in and learn (= commit to your permanent memory) about 20 – 30 blues lessons from the ActiveMelody collection. Then you will learn a lot of licks and have fun doing it.

Sunjamr Steve

[Jean-Michel G]

Hi Klaus,
I fully agree with Steve.
The best (only?) way to learn how to play the blues is to listen to tons of blues songs, and try to reproduce what you hear. That’s another way of saying that you should learn some licks…
There are many types of blues, so you will probably want to pick a blues guitarist you really like and concentrate on his/her style. May I suggest B.B. King to start with? 😉

In addition, I think it helps to understand what it is that makes a lick sound bluesy or not. There are some technical aspects that come into play.
The first thing to do is to limit yourself to the (minor) pentatonic scale; this will already help you sound less “classical” and more “blues”, because the pentatonic scale lacks some scale degrees compared to the major scale and that affects phrasing. Also, the minor third rubbing against the chordal major thirds is soooo typical of the blues!
Next, you should introduce the flatted fifth (the “blue note”) to add to the bluesy character.
And finally, try to bend into notes instead of playing them straight (and your bends don’t have to be 100% pure!).

It’s a long journey, but it’s worth it. Enjoy!

[Sal]

Here is a blues # with feeling!!Song is in Gm!

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