Playing Blues

Blues is primarily an improvisational form of music.  That is, it's dynamic--you play what you feel and make it up as you go.  You can find sheet music and tab for blues songs, and these can be useful helps for learning a particular song.  But you have to play from your heart, not from your head.  That is, the blues needs to sound spontaneous, not preplanned--even if you're playing well worn songs.

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Listen to enough blues that you can hear the chord changes and anticipate them by feel, without thinking about it. Develop your ear enough to be able to single out and listen to the individual instruments.  Playing blues is like communicating in a language.. you need to be able to listen as well as speak, and what you say is better if it fits in the context of the conversation.

Stay in the rhythmic "groove" established mainly by the bass and the drums.  Beginning players often worry so much about notes, they forget about the rhythm--but the rhythm is the heart beat of the music, giving it life.  It is normally better to make a mistake on a note than a mistake on the rhythm.

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The blues consists of numerous phrases (also called "licks" or "riffs") that follow a question-answer, tension-release form.  The initial phrase asks the musical question and establishes some tension.  The subsequent phrase releases the tension by answering the question.  So, even though the phrases are distinct and separate, they are still related.  Listen to the questions asked by the other instruments and how they are answered.  Build your improvisational solos in the context of this conversation.  Even though you're playing a solo, you're first and foremost part of a team of musicians creating the music.  Listen to the music.  Add to it only to make it better.

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The Blues Form

If you're going to play the blues, you have to be thoroughly familiar with the blues form.

Normally the blues is played as a 12 bar chord progression in 4/4 time using the I IV V (one four five) chords of the major scale, normally played as dominant 7th chords (i.e. with the flat 7th added to the basic triad), and melody notes from the blues scale.

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The basic 12 bar form is:

• 4 bars of the tonic I chord, (In the key of C that's an C chord)
  (Draw chord (1&)2&3&4&5)

• 2 bars of the sub-dominant IV chord, (In the key of C, that's an F chord)
  (Blow chords 1>&2>&3>; 4>&5>&6>; 7>&8>&9>&10>)

• 2 more bars of the I chord,

• 1 bar of the dominant V chord, (in the key of C, that's a G chord)

• 1 bar of the IV chord

• 1 bar of the I chord

• 1 bar of the V chord as a turnaround to start the next verse, or 1 more bar of the I chord to end

• back to the beginning