Samui Blues

In the history of the guitar blues there have been some great players and fortunately many of those great players are still with us today. Whether you prefer smooth guitar blues or whether you like to have your guitar blues smash you in the face there have been players to oblige you and to entertain you for over a century now. Here is a quick look at some guitar blues players that have made an impact.

BB King

BB King has been playing guitar blues for over 60 years and is one of the standards that people use when they talk about guitar blues players. He has recorded with such great bands as U2 and is best known for his trademark hollow body electric guitar he calls Lucille. He was originally called the Beale Street Blues Boy but before his first record came out the record company shortened it to BB and used his real last name of King to create the name BB King. In over 60 years BB King has played his smooth style of blues all over the world.

Eric Clapton

Known simply as “Slow Hand”, Eric Clapton is a self taught guitar prodigy who got his start in the famous 1960′s hard rock blues band Cream. After Cream disbanded he went on to form such acts as Derrick And The Dominoes but Clapton was always displaying his trademark slow hand smooth guitar blues style somewhere in the world. Recently Cream was reunited for a few shows and it is unknown whether or not they will stay together but even without a reunited Cream Eric Clapton has still left his mark as one of the greatest guitar blues players ever.

Robert Johnson

It is difficult to talk about guitar blues players without talking about the man that greats such as Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters cite as one of their prime influences. Robert Johnson was born in 1911 and died in 1938 but in between there he recorded and released at least a half dozen or more records that survive today as an example of the talent and vision that Johnson had. He lived the blues and, by some accounts, died because of the blues and Robert Johnson is the place where most blues is said to have come from.

Jimi Hendrix

For some reason Jimi Hendrix is never given his due as the master guitar blues player that he was because many people cannot see past his use of sound and energy on the electric guitar. But everything Jimi did was based in the blues and many of his more popular songs are simply blues songs done Jimi’s way and there is nothing wrong with that.

If you have a hankerin’ to be a blues guitar player but don’t know how to start, there is no better way than to immerse yourself in the recordings of the blues guitar players of the twentieth century. You can use the licks of famous blues guitarists as building blocks that will eventually be the fragments of your own blues guitar solos. There is wide agreement amongst blues fans about who are the greatest blues guitarists, who is the best to learn from, but once you get talking to people you will realize that each person’s reaction to the works of the blues masters is personal and unique. So your starting point to being a blues guitar player is to take your own personal take on the blues you hear and expand on it.

If you are a new guitar player you might not be familiar with the various techniques that blues guitar players use to make their guitars sing. There is no special blues “magic” that you learn from the blues legends, the guitar techniques for one style are pretty much the same as for another, but you will find your own personal way of making established guitar techniques your own.

There’s a whole world of communication in the techniques that guitar players use to play notes with the left hand instead of picking using the right hand. The techniques are called hammer-ons and pull-offs. A pull-off is the art of picking a note and taking your left hand finger away in a kind of pulling action so that the note below your original note sounds. For example, you could place you first finger on the first fret of the first string and the second finger on the second fret of the first string. With both fingers in place, you pick the first string sounding the F# note and pull your second finger away so that the F note at the first fret sounds.

The “opposite” to the pull-off is the hammer-on which, if you follow up on the pull-off you just executed, you “hammer” the second finger back to where it was at the second fret so that the F# note sounds again. Another technique for the guitar player’s left hand is String Bending. If you look at your finger placed at a fret, you move the finger by pushing up and down. This makes your guitar string give a warbling sound.

As you are an aspiring blues guitarist of the twenty-first century, you will probably prefer to listen to electric guitar players. B. B. King is the coolest of the black blues guitarists, closely followed by a white English boy named Eric Clapton. You could also give a listen to Chuck Berry who is practically a one-man guitar style.

Blues music has its inclination to African-American community of the USA. It is a kind of vocal or instrumental music which is generally based on blues notes. The concept aroused from the spirituality, chants, work songs and ballads. The African influence is greatly felled in the notes and call-and-response patterns of music and lyrics. The American and Western music is more inclined to this music genre. It became the foundation stone for the different music forms namely jazz, rhythm and blues, heavy metal, bluegrass and hip-hop. The blues mainly reflect the mood of the singer i.e. depression, down hearted feeling or sadness. The Blues word was used for the first time in George Colman’s farce’s ‘Blue Devils’. It was in the 1912 that Hart Wand’s ‘Dallas Blues’ came and it was the first Blues Music to describe the depressing mood. There is common distinctiveness in the music genre. Showing the individual peculiar habits, the music elements were earlier call-and-response shouts. They were just individual’s performance with no harmony or formal music structure. These pre-blues were simply a solo song with emotional touch. They were often heard in shouts and hollers. The present day music form has harmonic base and call-and-response format of African and European communities which gave new structure to the Blues. The voice and guitar were incorporated in the songs. The elements reflected the songs of Africa. The most common instruments, Diddley bow and Banjo were used in the early music. The Diddley bow belonged to South America whereas the Banjo was mostly used in Africa to increase the instrumental vocabulary. With each passing days it adopted Ethiopian airs, Negro spirituality and minstrel shows together with instruments and rhythmic supplements. The blues are rewarded for preserving the melodic patterns of African music. The songs from this genre have distinct musical structure. The songs recorded by Lead Belly’s and Henry Thomas reflected twelve- and sixteen-bar structure with tonic, sub-dominant and dominant chords. The modern form has 12-bar structure with influence of sheet music. The lyrics of the blues were based on repetition. Each line was repeated four times. Currently, the lines are repeated once with a standard single line conclusion. They are sung in the form of rhythmic talk than a melody. The Blues music has given great artists like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Bessie Smith. The credit can be given to the hollers and calls without which this genre would not have evolved. It is based on the changing lives of the post slavery era of African-Americans. The music is quite popular amongst blacks and generally reflects on the atrocities faced by the community. More popularly considered as secular songs, the Blues lyrics highlighted singer’s inner shelf. Thus it was not an innovative approach but simply a presentation of oneself. It describes the condition of African Americans communities. It has descriptions related to slaves’ freedom, Booker T. Washington’s teachings, and the famous Horatio Alger model, who once said that man is the creator of his/her destiny. Lawrence Levine stresses on the fact that national ideologies affect the individual’s behaviour and the blues music reflect this relationship. Blacks were badly treated during the slavery era and were socially and economically exploited. The secular songs reflect this psychological oppression. The music was earlier treated as folk blues and was sung during leisurely periods. These songs were mostly sung in shows and carnivals. Due to close contact with country singers, the blacks learned to sing professional Blues which are often called classic blues. In the 20th century, African Americans migrated and played the songs in Texas, Chicago, Louisiana, New York, Arkansas and Detroit. Later the classic blues singers introduced this genre to clubs, vaudeville halls, and theaters with the help of New Orleans and Fast Western musicians. It was in 1895 when George W. Johnson recorded the first blues song called “Laughing Song”. The genre gained popularity in 1920 with Mamie Smith’s evergreen songs namely “Crazy Blues” and “It’s Right Here for You”. Online music shop have varied array of latest blues music for the fans. Keep the blues alive says Samuiblues !

Comin to ya on a dusty road Good lovin I got a truck load And when you get it you got something So dont worry cause Im coming Im a soul man Im a soul man Im a soul man Im a soul man Got what I got the hard way And Ill make it better each and every day So honey dont you fret Cause you aint seen nothing yet Im a soul man Im a soul man Play it steve! Im a soul man Im a soul man Listen I was brought up on a side street I learned how to love before I could eat I was educated from good stock When …

There are many forms of music and even these forms of music can be further broken up into different categories. With the category of guitar music there are many types like jazz, classical, rock-and-roll, new age music, and blues music. For individuals who are fascinated with blues guitar music there is always the chance to take blues guitar lessons.

These lessons should be learnt properly from people who have an understanding about the many different sounds that can be found in the blues music category. You can also get blues guitar lessons from how-to-DVDs, books and the internet. From all of these different sources you will be able to get good blues guitar lessons that will be of help to you.

Before you begin your blues guitar lessons however, you might first want to take into the consideration the fact of whether or not you have played the guitar before. If you haven’t played before then you might first want to look into getting basic guitar lessons as well.

This also comes very strongly into play if your blues guitar lessons are coming in the form of such learning aids as DVD’s, CD’s, book or the internet. Before you go with any of these learning mediums you will first need to make sure that they are either catered for beginner’s or that you can get you hands on beginning guitar lessons as well.

Once this aspect of your guitar lessons has been covered you can then move on to the business of learning to identify the different chords, and how they are used in blues guitar lessons. With these different combinations you will be able to try out a blues guitar song.

In your first few blues guitar lessons you should remember to progress through the various steps at a small pace and you will need to constantly practice your finger placement in order to be able to play the guitar music well.

Once you have found the best way of memorizing the chord placement and you are confident to move on with your blues guitar lessons then you can ask your instructor to show you how to combine the chords together and learn to play the music with the right beat.

You should understand that while you’re beginning your many blues guitar lessons you will have different letters of the alphabet to represent the various musical notations. This can be of help when you are still trying to find your way through the maze that guitar lessons, and in particular blues guitar lessons, will take you through.

None of this should bother you unduly though. While you are still in the beginning learning phase of your blues guitar lessons the only things you need to worry about is learning to play the guitar. So sit back, relax and strum away at your guitar strings.

Mark Twang says check out John Lee Hooker at Live in 1965 At the  American Folk Blues Festival. There is a excellent 4 DVD set that was released not long ago with other Great Chess Records Artists, such as Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy, Little Walter, Holwin Holf with a young Hubert Sumlin,  and many more, it is awesome. The stuff was shot in Europe and one DVD was made in England and the quality and performances are great.

Cry guitar, cry..

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