Chords for Blues Guitar Lesson 1 - Delta Blues style lick

Hey everybody, Drew here.
Welcome to lesson one of the sequel to the Play Better Blues
course.
Today we're going to be going over Delta Blues style and we're really going to
be utilizing the whole instrument to create a very big sound and that's what Delta Blues
is all about.
I'm going to be playing an acoustic guitar today.
This can be done on electric
or acoustic.
And Delta Blues very much has influenced a lot of rock and roll.
So if that's
more your preference and style, this is definitely something to check out.
But start with the
chord chart in front of you.
It's called the E7 chord.
Take a close look at that.
And we're
going to look at our left hand and get a real close look at what we're doing here.
So first
thing I want you to notice is we're going to use our second and third finger.
The second
finger is playing the third fret of the B string and the third finger is playing the
fourth fret of the G.
Now that might be kind of a stretch.
These two fingers don't like
to spread apart.
So this might be kind of hard for you.
If it is, I will allow you to
use your first and second finger just this once.
It is a little bit easier for some people
to do this.
However, if you can get away with it, second and third finger is definitely
the way to go.
It's more correct and it will be easier because we have this first finger
available to get back down into open position and play some cool licks.
So with our right
hand, I want you to hit your open E string and then we're going to play the G, [Bm] the B,
and then the open E again [E] on the very bottom.
Now, hopefully all of them are ringing out
and they [Em] sound just great.
But if not, chances are it's probably this bottom open E string
that may not be ringing out.
In that event, make sure you're arching your fingers a bunch.
Make sure you're keeping that thumb behind the neck because if it's not behind the neck,
it's really difficult to arch those fingers.
Another thing to keep in mind is make sure
the neck is straight.
You're not slouching the neck.
Make sure it's very [Ab] vertically straight
up and down.
Even though it's hard to see, [E] that will allow us to arch our fingers a little
bit more.
Now, if [Em] you're still not getting off that bottom E string to ring out again,
you can use first and second finger and that usually [E] makes it a little bit easier to arch.
These fingers are more dominant.
We use them more so they are easier to get [B] an arch.
But
again, if you can use two, three, definitely go for [E] that.
So let's just go through them
again. _ _
_ Now, basically what we're going to be doing, you may remember from [Em] the first
blues course, we're going to be playing some triplets.
And triplets were basically a group
of [E] three notes, counted one, two, three.
So what we're going to be doing is hitting our
open E string first and then doing two triplets on this.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Just like that, pretty simple. _
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Now to really spice [Em] it up,
I want to add a slide [N] at the beginning of each triplet.
Now the trick to sliding, we're
going to lower everything by one fret.
So now my second and third finger are on the
second fret of the B and the third fret of the G.
We're going to [Ab] pluck them there, [E] slide
them up a fret, back to where [N] we were originally.
And the trick here is to start with really
good fretting, meaning your fingers are all the way up on the fret, and we want to finish
with really good fretting.
[Bb] If the [E] start or the finish is off as far as the fretting goes,
[E] the slide will not ring out.
_ _ And again, we're going to put the slide at the beginning of
each triplet.
So it's like [B] slide, two, three.
Slide, two, three.
[G] Sounds pretty cool already.
Listen to it with that open E string in the [E] beginning. _
_ _ _ _ Now let me do that once more. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Now
one thing you may notice is with my thumb behind the neck [N] is I keep it planted even
when I'm sliding, and I use that kind of plantation of the thumb to push my fingers
and slide them from fret to fret.
I'm not sliding my thumb with my fingers.
There's
way too much resistance on [G] the neck to do that.
So that might help as well with the
slide.
Now the slide is optional, so if you're really having a hard time with it or if you
don't like the way it sounds, you don't have to do it.
Now let's take a look at that first
measure on there.
You can see we had our open string, the two slide, slid [E] triplets, _ _ and
then we have [A] second fret of the G, pull [Em] off to open, and you probably remember the pull
offs from the last blues course, [G] although that [E] is optional.
If you want to pick [A] both
of these, that's cool too.
[G] And then second [E] fret of the D, and then we finish with the
open E again.
So let me walk you through that last little part.
It's pull off from [A] second
fret of the G to open, and then second [E] fret of the D, and then we finish with open E.
The entire first measure would be this.
The open E string, two slide triplets,
_ _ _ second fret of the G, [Em] pull off to D, second fret of [E] the D, and then open E.
And I'm just going to play that a couple of times for you so you can hear it.
_ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [E] _ So that time I didn't do the pull off, still sounded cool.
Here it is with the pull off. _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [E] _ _ _ So there you have it.
Basically what we're going to be doing in our next video is the
same exact concept, but we're going to be doing it with an [N] A7 chord.
Pretty soon we're
going to go through all the different chords of the Delta Blues and we'll wrap it all together
in this first part.
So thanks for tuning in and I'll see you in the next video. _ _ _