Learning how to play blues guitar is really not that much different from learning how to play any other type of guitar. The main thing about playing blues is in the feel, and the choice of notes and chords that are used. Once you have those 3 things down, it all becomes a matter of practice and patience.

In most rock and popular songs, eighth notes break each beat into two equal pieces. This division create the common “one & two & three & four &” feel that we’re used to in popular songs. Blues guitar on the other hand uses a swing feel, where each beat is divided into three pieces. Instead of “one & two &,” we get “one & a two & a three & a four & a.” Dividing the beats into three pieces creates what are called eighth note triplets. Since there are usually four beats per measure in the blues, you are usually playing four groups of three.

When starting out with learning blues guitar, you should practice strumming an easy chord like G7, which stands for G dominant 7, with a swing feel. You should practice strumming down on the strong beats, those that fall on the one, two, three, or four, skip the ‘&,’ and strum up again on the ‘a.’ With that rhythm you get the do DAH do DAH do DAH do DAH sound made popular by artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and BB King.

One of the essential elements of learning how to play blues guitar is learning how to play a dominant seventh type of chord. All chords have 2 pieces, and blues guitar chords are no exception. If you have an A7 chord, there are two things that name tells you, you know that the chord starts on an A note, and you know it has a dominant seventh chord quality, or sound. Dominant seventh chords use the root, third, fifth, and flatted seventh of the major scale. It is that blending together of the major third and minor seventh notes that give dominant seventh chords their unique appeal. In most forms of music, only the chord built from the fifth scale degree is permitted to be a dominant seventh chord. In blues, all of the chords are dominant seventh.

The last thing about blues guitar is the use of the blues scale. From a major scale, take the root, flatted third, fourth, flatted fifth, fifth, and flatted seventh tone and you have a minor blues scale. For a major blues scale, you take the root, second, flatted third, third, fifth, and sixth notes from a major scale. What really makes these scales sound ‘bluesy’ is the way they contain a flatted third, but are played against dominant seventh chords which have a major third. This usage is one of the more prevalent characteristics of blues music. It is also a major component of a lot of blues-based rock and popular music.

If you are learning how to play blues guitar, remember the words of the great BB King, “The blues is the easiest music to learn, and the hardest to master.” As in many facets of life, the blues is taking small ideas and constructing them together in such a way that they make something great.

Griff Hamlin is a professional musician with 25 years of experience. His new book on How To Play Blues Guitar is now available on his website, playingthroughtheblues.com.

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