How To Play Blues On Guitar

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The raw material you use for playing blues on guitar is a collection of notes called a scale. There are lots of different scales with names like melodic or harmonic minor, phrygian mode or the blues scale. They have different names because each sequence of notes sounds musical in a limited number of settings. The practice of dividing music up into scales and chords and genres comes from European musical tradition which contains a large theoretical component. The blues, on the other hand, originated with people who carried it over to America inside themselves and sang and played it without thinking whether the instruments they used were appropriate or how to pass on the music in written form.

So here we are trying to reconcile the two approaches to music. Our guide to whether we are successful in our efforts is the way the music makes us, and our listeners, feel.

This YouTube guitar video is a great start to learning how to play the blues on guitar . . .