Jon Chappell has jammed with countless blues musicians at Chicago's blues clubs. He is an award-winning guitarist and composer as well as past editor- in-chief of Guitar Magazine and Home Recording Magazine. His other books include Guitar For Dummies, Guitar Exercises For Dummies, Classical Guitar For Dummies, and Rock Guitar For Dummies

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

What You're Not to Read 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book is Organized 4

Part 1: You Got a Right to Play the Blues 4

Part 2: Setting Up to Play the Blues 4

Part 3: Beyond the Basics: Playing Like a Pro 4

Part 4: Sounding Like the Masters: Blues Styles through the Ages 4

Part 5: Gearing Up: Outfitting Your Arsenal 5

Part 6: The Part of Tens 5

Part 7: Appendixes 5

Icons Used in This Book 5

Where to Go from Here 6

Part 1: You Got a Right to Play the Blues 7

Chapter 1: Every Day I Have the Blues Hallelujah! 9

Capturing the Blues Train from Its Departure Then to Its Arrival Now 10

The pieces of blues that made the genre 10

The place of the blues' conception 11

Rejoicing over 100 years of blues: The shifting shape of the genre 11

The qualities that made blues cats hit the big-time 12

It's Not All Pain and Suffering - The Lighter Side of Blues 13

Surveying the Means to Make the Music: The Guitar in All Its Glory 14

The low-fi acoustic guitar 14

The semi-hollowbody electric guitar 15

Solidbody electric guitars 15

The Collision of Two Worlds: Acoustic versus Electric 16

Getting a Grip on How Guitars Work 17

You've gotta use your hands - both of them 17

Producing the tones: String vibration and pitch 18

Electric guitars only: Pickups and amplification 18

Performing and Looking Like a Blues Player 19

Expanding and filling your brain with know-how 19

Looking the part 20

Blues Trivia For Dummies 21

The questions 21

The answers 22

Chapter 2: Blues Meets Guitar: A Match Made in Musical Heaven 23

Beyond the Delta: Defining the Blues Guitar Sound 24

The method to the music: Chord progressions 25

The guitarist's language of melody 25

The expression that invokes your senses 26

The groove that sets the pace 27

Dissecting an Acoustic and an Electric 27

Getting Down with the Blues: A Quick How-To 31

The foundation for all guitar playing: Acoustic guitars 31

Shifting acoustic to overdrive: Electric guitars 32

What You Need to Get Your Groove On 35

Chapter 3: Grab Hold, Tune Up, Play On! 39

Holding Your Axe (That Is, Your Guitar) 39

Grabbing your guitar's neck 40

Pushing down on the strings 41

Getting sound to come out 42

Holding the Pick, Attacking the Problem 44

Getting Situated 45

Sitting down 46

or standing up 46

Tuning Up 47

Helping your guitar get in tune with itself 48

Holding your guitar to an electronic standard 49

Playing a Chord 50

Music Notation: Not Just for Geeks 51

Guidance for your aimless fingers: A chord diagram 52

Mapping out your short-term path: Rhythm notation 53

Guiding you all the way through a song: Tablature 54

Part 2: Setting Up to Play the Blues 55

Chapter 4: Getting a Grip on Left-Hand Chords 57

Starting Out Simple: Blues Chords Even Your Mom Could Play 58

Going to the Next Level: Barre Chords 59

Forming a barre chord 61

Naming barre chords 62

Playing E-based barre chords 63

Playing A-form barre chords 65

Combining forms 67

Taking Advantage of Versatile Power Chords 68

Chapter 5: Positioning the Right Hand for Rhythm and Lead 71

Strumming Along 71

Stroking down 72

And stroking up 72

Combining down and up 73

Striking to a beat 73

Eighth-note striking, twice per beat 74

Mixing Single Notes and Strumming 75

Separating bass and treble: The pick-strum 75

Playing common pick-strum patterns 76

Shuffling the Beats with Syncopated Strumming 78

A bit of notation: Dots that extend and ties that bind 79

Syncopation: Playing with dots and ties 80

Stopping the String Ringing (Just for a Sec) 81

Muting the sound between two chords (left hand) 81

Simulating syncopation with left-hand muting 81

Muting the sound of a note (right hand) 82

Copying the Classics: Plucking Fingerstyle Blues 83

The Right Hand's Bliss: Different Rhythm Styles to Play 84

The shuffle groove 85

The driving straight-four 87

The slow 12/8, with groups of three 89

The two-beat feel 91

The slow and funky 16 feel 92

Chapter 6: Blues Progressions, Song Forms, and Moves 95

Blues by the Numbers 95

Recognizing the Big Dogs: Primary Key Families and Their Chords 96

The Structure of a Blues Song, Baby 97

Playing the 12-bar blues 98

Slow blues 101

The 8-bar blues 104

Straight-four (or rock blues) 104

Applying Structures to Keys 106

A move with many chords: The Jimmy Reed move 106

The sound of sadness: Minor blues 109

Accessorizing the 12-Bar Blues: Intros, Turnarounds, and Endings 112

Intros 112

Turnarounds 113

Endings 114

High Moves 115

Chapter 7: Musical Riffs: Bedrock of the Blues 119

Basic Single-Note Riffs 120

For the low-down bass notes: Quarter-note riffs 120

The big daddy of riffs: Eighth-note riffs 121

Adding a little funk: 16th-note riffs 122

Throwing rhythm for a loop: Syncopated eighth-note riffs 123

Double the Strings, Double the Fun: Two-Note Riffs (or Double-Stops) 123

Straight feel 124

Shuffle, or swing, eighths 125

High-Note Riffs, the Bridge to Lead Guitar 126

Keith Richards's borrowed trademark: Quick-four riffs 127

Intro, turnaround, and ending riffs 127

Mastering the Rhythm Figure 133

Part 3: Beyond the Basics: Playing Like a Pro 135

Chapter 8: Playing Lead: Soaring Melodies and Searing Solos 137

Mastering Your Picking Technique 138

Becoming smooth with your simple downs and ups 138

Tackling tricky alternate-picking situations 140

The Universal Lead Language: The Pentatonic Scale 141

Why the pentatonic is the perfect scale 142

The two sides of the pentatonic scale 142

A common scale for practice: E minor pentatonic 144

Pentatonic Plus One: The Six-Note Blues Scale 147

Adding Some Extra Flava to the Blues Scale 148

Clashing bitterly 149

A dash of sweetness 149

Chapter 9: Playing Up the Neck 153

For Inquiring Minds: Why Up the Neck You Should Go 153

Positioning Your Digits for an Easy Key Change 154

The pros of closed positions 155

The details of closed, numbered positions 155

Easing Into Position: Moving the Pentatonic Up and Down 157

Changing Your Position 159

A natural first: Moving from fifth position to eighth 159

The eighth-position blues bonus 160

How low can you go? Moving from fifth position to third 160

The Technical Side of Moving 161

Like taking candy from a baby: The subtle shift 161

Seeking a bit of attention: The noticeable slide 162

When you don't want to move, just reach or jump 163

Five Positions You Should Know: Meanderings of the Pentatonic Scale 163

Relating the positions to each other 164

Connecting the positions: Licks that take you up and down 166

Understanding the Logic behind the Corresponding Shift of Position and Key 166

Recognizing common keys and their comfortable positions 167

Mapping keys to positions 167

Chapter 10: Express Yourself: Making the Guitar Sing, Cry, and Wail 171

Appreciating the Art of Articulation 172

Going In for the Attack 172

A little bit louder now a little bit softer now: Dynamics 173

Hitting hard and backing off 174

Breaking Down the Music: Phrasing 176

Connecting notes the slippery way: Slides 176

It's hammer time - get ready to strike a string! 179

Exposing a note by lifting a digit: Pull-offs 181

Giving Your Sound a Bit of Flair 182

Shake that string: Adding vibrato 182

The rubber-band blues: Bends that stretch a string 183

Playing a Song with Various Articulations 187

Part 4: Sounding Like the Masters: Blues Styles through the Ages 191

Chapter 11: Acoustic Roots: Delta Blues and Its Country Cousins 193

Delta Blues: Where It All Began 194

Understanding the Delta technique 194

Ladies and gentlemen, king of the Delta blues: Robert Johnson 194

Country Ragtime: The Piedmont Blues 201

Everything In-Between: Country and Folk Blues 203

A quick profile of country and folk blues 203

Giving these "in-between blues" a listen 204

Closing with a lick and some style: Ragtime tags 204

Country and Folk Blues Had a Baby; Its Name was Rockabilly 206

Quintessential Blues: Slide Guitar 208

The tools that let you slide 208

Sliding technique 208

Tuning your guitar for slide, a technique all its own 209

Chapter 12: The Birth and Growth of Classic Electric Blues 213

The Rise of the Electric Guitar in Blues 214

Giving Props to the Earliest Electric Pioneer 215

Sweet Home Chicago, Seat of the Electric Blues 218

Muddy Waters, leader of the pack 218

Elmore James, slide guitarist extraordinaire 219

Otis Rush: Soulful player with a flair for vibrato 220

Buddy Guy, the father of blues rock 221

Modern-Day Blues Styles: The Sounds of Texas 222

Four Blues Giants: Three...