Blues Guitar for Beginners

Course description

Learning how to play the blues may seem daunting but doing so can greatly enhance your performances. This beginner guitar course teaches you how to form blues chords and adds blues techniques to your skills. We discuss fretboard map identification and pentatonic scales before showing you how to maintain your guitar and perform stretching exercises. Sign up to learn how to play the blues and add a little rhythm and soul to your music.

Guitarists take pride in their music and mastering different genres and techniques takes time and effort. This beginner guitar course is designed by Stay Curious Media to make that process easier and more enjoyable. It provides the skills required to play the blues and begins with an overview of the fascinating history of the genre, from its early roots in the American South to its modern global popularity.

The next lesson introduces you to the shuffle rhythm. We explain how notes are added to basic chords to perform more advanced forms. We discuss how the root note combines with the fifth and major third chord to form triad chords. Guitar Maintenance is important so we show you how to clean, restring and tune your instrument. The course demonstrates several warm-up and stretching exercises to help you keep your fingers strong and limber while performing.

The course then explores fretboard map identification, pentatonic scales and shapes. The pentatonic scale is made up of five notes and provides the base of the blues rhythm. We explain the hammer-on, pull-off and bending techniques to help you master the distinctive sound of the blues. Finally, we show you how to use a metronome to improve your sense of time and speed when playing. You can also download lesson notes and tablature from our ‘Resources’ section to guide your private practice sessions. Learning how to play the blues can add another dimension to your guitar skills as you draw on the genre’s distinctive and evocative sound to tell your story and connect with audiences.