How to Play Blues Guitar: Minor Blues

Alright everybody, now this here is the minor blues; this is one of my favorite. When we get to the late section I will show why because there is a couple things that you can do with this one because it is so mild and so dark sound, okay. Now, the chords that we are going to be using are (guitar playing sample of following chords) A minor, D minor, E7 and that is it. There is still going to be A and E but there are going to be minor chords and a 7th chords (guitar playing). Now, the first thing that I want to talk you about that concerning this minor blues progression is what is called staccato strumming. Now normally when we strum a chord, it is just like (guitar playing). But, when we do this staccato thing to give it the effect, what we are going be doing is releasing the pressure of our hand not taking it off the strings but just enough to stop the strings from ringing out, for example like this (guitar playing). See how my hand, I want to do it real slow (guitar playing) just release the pressure and it will stop that from ringing. Now, staccato meaning short; legato meaning long. So, we are going do a legato strum and a staccato strum, we are going to do them both together and I will show how it all works together, okay. First the A minor (guitar playing), 3 , 4 and then B minor (guitar playing), back to the A minor (guitar playing), next chord we have the D7, and then we have D minor, and finally A minor, we will resolve on the E7, okay. Now, there is a couple of different ways we can do this, let us say we mixed-up that legato strum with the staccato strum and then in our page 8 chord, so we could give it a totally different vibe, check this out (guitar playing) you see what I mean. Or, you could do it the exact opposite way if you wanted to. You can start with an arpeggio (guitar playing) then a legato and staccato strum. Either way, mix it up and see what you come with. The best way is the way you like best that is the way to do it, okay. So, I am going to this once again with a band and you will be able to practice with this and you will be able to hear what it sounds like with a group. So, minor blues let us wind it up (band playing with samples of chords and techniques being played all together) here I am going to use a little arpeggio, D minor, E7. (lyrics: Give me if you want to our paging in the whole thing. Another great year right.)

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