Learning Guitar – Starting slow and playing less is MORE
As a guitar teacher sharing music with all students in East Bay whether you like heavy rock a la Eddie Van Halen, James Brown soul, reggae like Bob Marley’s, Wes Montgomery jazz or basic B.B.King blues, as a beginner, keeping things simple is the best way to develop the skills to become a monster guitar player.
Starting slow and playing less is more. A line made famous by great blues guitarist “B.B. King”. He coined the phrase less is more in both rhythm guitar playing and guitar leads. At first keep things simple and then develop simple patterns into patterns that change every beat to add more color and develop your rhythm patterns and lead patterns.
Much of our music today from jazz to rock to fusion and of course blues originated in the slavery days of 1800s when slaves working in fields picking cotton or tobacco would sing a small phrase known as a call statement and then another slave would answer but with little different pattern to give a new flavor to the interaction.
Robben Ford is a local monster electric guitarist playing with Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, George Harrison, Bonnie Rait , Michael McDonald. Robben started on Jazz Sax and then started guitar. He was playing sax lines on guitar and thus developed a unique solo style. Check out this great way to Robbens style playing a chord for every beat and it sounds great .
Here is Robben Ford’s twist on adding his own patterns so every blues pattern is one shade of red or blue on canvass.
TOP FOUR STRING EVERY BEAT BLUES VOICINGS means fingering the top four strings which adds a great high end sound that blends beautifully with the traditional blues patterns that stay on the bottom strings 6, 5 and or 4 known as the bass strings and register of where traditional blues guitar patterns are performed. Download the pdf of Every Beat Top 4 Strings Voicings
Notice it’s a 12 Bar Blues in Key of G. If you master the first measure known as the I chord you just play the same pattern transposed up to C also known as the IV chord and then transpose up to D known as the V chord.
Take your time – “Tempo De Learno” Nice and slow at first and only learn in Key of G until you have it down in your sleep then you transpose to other keys. These guitar chords are known as upper extensions which means 9ths, 11ths or 13ths gives real rich sound.
Have fun jamming the blues.
