How to Play the Blues Guitar

blues guitar tips

blues guitar tips

On blues guitar tips:

Blues Slide Guitar
By Ricky Sharples
Slide playing in blues music had been popular for many years but not many people understand how this playing style originated and the techniques used to produce this fascinating sound. In the early twentieth century many American blues players began their careers playing music on a single string instrument called a diddley bow. This was a kid's toy consisting of a wire stretched between two screws. It seems logical that without access to store bought instruments the emerging adult musicians would develop an instrument based on what they played music on as children. Of course the early blues players did use conventional guitars but a played with a slide made from a knife or a bottle neck more readily complemented the vocal style and blues harp techniques the people used to express their lives in music.

Blues players who took up slide and influenced other musicians to do so were Muddy Waters and Elmore James. Both of these guitarists were driven by the music of Robert Johnson, built on his legacy and further influenced electric blues players like Johnny Winter and Duane Allman. Elmore actually started his musical career on the diddley bow when he was twelve years old. A confirmed individualist, he played a modified acoustic to sound like a solid body electric.


Many students of blues slide think that Earl Hooker is the greatest slide player ever. He sometimes uses wah-wah with his slide playing and often amazed other musicians with his ability to make the slide "sing". But Earl Hooker did not need electronic effects to make his playing great as people who ______continued.

Interesting article on blues guitar tips:

Learn To Play Blues Guitar Solos And Make Them Yours
By Ricky Sharples
When you first think about learning to play blues guitar solos you will be faced with wanting to play the blues like the guitar players of the past, but at the same time you don't want to just play Read more...

More on blues guitar tips:

continued______ played music with him praise his technical skills. Elmore James' song, "The Sky Is Crying" was covered by modern blues legends Albert King, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn and George Thorogood.

Arguably one of the most high profile slide players is Ry Cooder. He is a skilled guitarist who enjoys injecting his own personality into traditional songs of many genres but he is remembered for his slide on the soundtracks of "Paris Texas" and "Crossroads". For these contributions alone he must be included in any list of blues slide players.

Duane Allman was a great blues player of the late sixties to early seventies probably most widely known for being the "other" guitarist on the Eric Clapton song, "Layla". His mastery of blues music is undisputed and there is a story of the joy he expressed the day he discovered how well a Coricidin bottle could be used as a slide. The story goes he had never played slide before but after that day his slide playing became an indispensable part of The Allman Brothers Band repertoire.

If you want to learn how to play blues slide guitar, you will probably need to learn to play using open tunings, maybe even get yourself a with heavy gauge strings and a high action specifically for open tunings. But to learn slide techniques you can begin with any steel string electric or acoustic using standard tuning. You will need your index finger to damp strings that you do not want heard so experiment with your slide fitted to your middle, ring finger or pinky. You will also want to try out finger picking style playing combined with slide techniques.
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Another decent article on blues guitar tips:

Learn To Play Blues Guitar Solos And Make Them Yours
By Ricky Sharples
When you first think about learning to play blues guitar solos you will be faced with wanting to play the blues like the guitar players of the past, but at the same time you don't want to just play Read more...

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