As with everything else you must first find a starting place to build from. A First Step, or "Foundation" if you will.From that Foundation you can move forward and add the different parts that you will need to create the basis for the Blues.
When we hear the word "Blues" many of us Blues Lovers immediatly think of the blazing and heartfelt solo styles of Eric Clapton, Albert King, BB King, Jeff Beck and countless others. And while we all have our favorites when it comes to Lead Guitar Playing, first we must step back and realize that those Guitar solos, No matter how great they are, are NOTHING without the pallete with which we present them. In other words, that by themselves they are all sizzle and no steak. All icing and no cake, All shine but no shoes.
Which quickly brings us to the cold hard fact that while those screaming guitar solos can touch all kinds of emotions and nerves, they, by themselves are meaningless. The rhythm section (bass and drums in most cases with the Texas Blues) creates the plate on which they are served up. The more simple, steady and to the point it is, then the better it makes the Guitar player sound, and the better the whole thing will sound as a package.
The youtube.com windows below contain two different Blues guitar videos. One of them starts out as a relatively simple version of the 1-4-5, 12-Bar Blues progression that every Blues Guitar player must know and be capable of playing in any key, at any given time.
This simple rhythm style is often referred to as "Jimmy Reed" because it was he and his lead guitar player Eddie Taylor who really popularized this shuffle style Blues in the fifties with his songs "Bright Lights, Big City" "Any way you want me to do" "Hush Hush" and countless others all using this same simple style of bass, drums, and electric guitar rhythm usually in the key of E "natural" or A.
I start out this video with just the simple rhythm and then I begin to embellish on it to show you how you can play the simple rhythm and add little bits of lead at the same time, and then more and more lead until I finally stop the rhythm all together and just play single note lines, but still structured around the root, sub-dominant and dominant chords of the 1-4-5 Blues progression.
The second video is a free Blues Guitar lesson I did and Posted on Vanderbilly dot com. It is a demonstration of some of the same teaching style that I incorperate on my DVD Video "Texas Electric Blues Guitar with Dennis Dullea" that is for sale on the first page of this site. I say "some" of the same style, because on the DVD, each lesson is shot from the front like this video is, but each lesson is also shot from over and above my left shoulder so the student can actually see the frets that are under my fingers. From this angle you can also see the fretboard and neck the same way I do instead of the mirror backwards view that we are all so used to trying to figure out.
Most of the licks on the second video are licks I lifted from Albert King and Johnnie Winter back in the late 60's when I first started playing guitar for a living. I break the whole run down into smaller sections that contain a demonstration of how each note is played in each phrase. I also give an oral explanation of how each lick is played.
I am still Building and working on this "Easy Blues Guitar" Page and have not yet Proofed it for grammer and typos, so please bear with me for awhile until I can get the correct Videos I want in it and finish cleaning it up.
I am going to have two completely Free Guitar lessons on this page that I will leave up indefinitely. There will be one lesson that will be the simple 1-4-5 twelve bar Blues shuffle, Jimmy Reed rhythm that I will play with little or no filigree for a few minutes so people can use it to play along with. Then I will take this same Jimmy Reed rhythm apart note by note string by string and explain exactly how it's done, when done correctly.
The other lesson will be a Lead Guitar lesson of some really good Blues licks that I will show you in the exact same teaching style that I use on my DVD teaching Video "Texas Electric Blues Guitar" that is available for sale on the Homepage of this Website.
Please stay tuned, and drop by often because I will be working very hard every day to complete this entire website.
Thank You all Very Much for stopping By, and Please come back again!
