Chords for Acoustic Blues Lesson - How to Make Your Guitar Playing Interesting

_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [F#] Now that's a whole different ball of wax [E] there. _ _ _ _
_ That gives you kind of a,
I think this is a little more spicy, I think.
This is more sweet and high. _
_ [C] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ [G#] _ [F] _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ Okay, and so one other thing I want to mention
is when you go to your four chord,
there's lots of ways you can land on that,
sorry, the five chord.
One, four, five, one, [B] four, five.
[E] _ _ _
_ _ There's a couple ways you can land on that,
many different ways.
One way I like to do it is the way we just did it,
which is,
[C#m] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[A#] _ _ [B] _ kind of finalizes it, right?
You feel the tension there, the five chord
[E] sends you back to your one.
Another way, rhythmically, is,
_ [C#m] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] _ now [E] I'm getting into some big city blues, right?
So what I tend to do is if [B] I'm starting out a blues
and [E] I'm just going like, _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D#] _
_ [D] _ _ [Em] _ _ singing some blues,
nothing but a [A] good man, freedom, and [E] death,
[F#] _
_ _ [E] _ _ and I'm [A] playing along and it's,
the first verse is kind of [E] not a lot going on, musically.
_ _ Kind of letting the song just groove.
[Bm] And I'm getting through my first [A] verse,
and then I'm down to [D] my _ fourth chord.
[Em] Then I might want to build up for that second verse.
[C#] _ _ [B] _ _
Here's how I would do that. _ _ _
_ _ _ Then maybe I'd go to a [Bm] solo here. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Shadow whisper.
_ _ [A] _ [D] _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] Drama.
[Em] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
[Bm] Space.
_ [B] Very important [A] in the blues. _
[D] _ [E] Any of you guys who've seen B.B. King,
or _ [E] any of those great blues guys,
[B] _ I've noticed they're the masters of,
from a roar to a whisper.
And I've talked about this in many of my courses,
including the electric ones, but especially in acoustic.
_ It's just you and your guitar.
You gotta create, you gotta make it spiky.
You gotta create some space.
You gotta create some dynamics.
And so I think dynamics are really, really important,
especially when you're playing acoustic blues.
Because if you're just playing the same thing,
kind of the same volume, same style,
same amount of notes, same, [Em] _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ [A] it just kind of goes nowhere. _
_ [D] And that's not what the blues is about.
The blues is about emotion, it's about feeling,
it's about _ being authentic with your playing,
and digging in and meaning it.
If I'm gonna _ believe what you're singing,
there's got to be some rise and fall to it.
So I think that's the drama of the blues.
That's the drama of music, [E] essentially, in my mind.
_ So that basically concludes this lesson.
And then I'm now gonna go deeper into this stuff
and go into more chordal stuff,
because I want you guys to be able to do more than just,
_ _ _ that's cool, or even this.
_ _ [B] But I'd like to get into more,
you know, what makes the blues, I [F#] think, interesting
is when you get into the [E] stuff like this.
_ [A] _ _
[B] _ _ _ [Em] _ _ [E] _ [A] Because as [E] a one-man [A] band, which essentially [Em] we [A] are
when we're playing [Em] acoustic guitar alone,
_ [E] you [F#] wanna _
[Gm] _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ [D] have some [A] flavor and some color go.
[F#] _ _ [A] _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
And then you wanna go some alternate [F#] chords, too. _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ [Em] _ _ [E] _ _
That kind of stuff.
_ _ So we're gonna get into that in the next chapter,
and we're gonna also explore