Catfish Blues Guitar Lesson: The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide

If you're a guitarist looking to add some bluesy flavor to your playing, this "Catfish Blues" guitar lesson is a great starting point. This guide covers the basics of the style, from essential chords and fingerpicking techniques to tips for adding your own personal touch. With these skills, you'll be able to jam with friends and have a lot of fun playing the blues."

Understanding the Roots of Catfish Blues 

To master the "Catfish Blues" style on guitar, it's important to understand its roots. This blues style originated in the Mississippi Delta region in the early 20th century and was heavily influenced by African American folk music and the blues. The style features fingerpicking, slide guitar, and distinctive chord progressions that set it apart from other blues styles.

Who originally wrote Catfish Blues?

Robert Petway, an American blues singer and guitarist born in 1903, is credited as the original composer of "Catfish Blues". His influential style heavily influenced later blues musicians, including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Jimi Hendrix.

Catfish Blues Chords 

One of the unique approaches used in this style is what I call a “One Chord Blues.” Essentially this is improvising a blues all based around just one chord. For this example, we’ll be playing in the key of E. So the main blues chord would be an E7.

I would first recommend learning the E7 chord like this: 

By understanding the history and roots of “Catfish Blues,” you'll be better equipped to play it authentically and with feeling.

Mastering the Essential Techniques

To truly get the music to start sounding right it is important to focus on the essential techniques that define the style. For this example, I would recommend playing without a guitar pick. Now a lot of early blues players used a thumbpick, which would also work well here. But for this lesson video above, I’ll be playing without a pick. 

Fingerpicking in the blues gets an expressive sound and makes you really feel the music. This is because your fingers are plucking the strings as opposed to a piece of plastic like a typical guitar pick.

Example 1 starts off by playing the low 6th string and then the high 1st string. These notes are both the note name E and are two octaves apart. From there move to a bend on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string. Pull that note up one whole step to move from note A up to B and then release it back down. So this is a bend-up and then release. After that do a pull-off to the open 3rd string. It’s important to note that the bend-up, release-down, and pull-off all need to be done with one pluck in the fingerpicking hand. It’s one motion. Finally, the first part of the phrase ends on the 2nd fret of the 4th string.

Example 2 goes back and repeats the first part of the lick again. So play the low 6th string and then the high 1st string again. After that do a slight blues bend on the 3rd fret of the 6th string, and bounce up to the note E on the 2nd fret of the 4th string.

Your next step after getting the first two parts down is to combine them like this:

Once you feel comfortable practice repeating the lick many times.

Over time you can experiment with improvising with the riff and start to use different notes from the E minor blues scale.

Scales & Riffs

After you feel comfortable with the main riff discussed in the examples above and the video lesson, you can start creating your own variations. To do this you will want to be familiar with the master scale for this lesson. That scale would be the E minor blues scale in the open position and can be played like this:

• 6th string frets = 0, 3
• 5th string frets = 0, 1, 2
• 4th string frets = 0, 2
• 3rd string frets = 0, 2, 3
• 2nd string frets = 0, 3
• 1st string frets = 0, 3
  
  

The open position E minor blues scale is a staple in blues guitar. I would consider this one of the most important blues scale patterns to know.

Conclusion: 

Learning how to play Catfish Blues on the guitar can be incredibly fun and rewarding for any level player. By using the strategies outlined in this post and practicing regularly, you can improve your fingerpicking technique, develop improvisational skills, and expand your blues guitar repertoire. Keep in mind that blues guitar is not necessarily about mastery of technical skills but more about playing with feeling. So don’t be afraid to make mistakes and have fun.