The BEST Way To Learn Blues Guitar

Have you ever wondered what exact steps you should take to learn blues guitar?

Many guitarists discover basics like how to read tabs, maj/min scales, a few chords, and maybe even a bit about the pentatonic scale.

But when they search videos online the lessons often only focus on one area. And they often have pre-requirements or things that aren’t explained the players don’t know about yet.

This can be frustrating. So in this post, I’d like to walk you through a powerful framework (I’ve developed over the past 26 years of teaching and playing blues guitar professionally) to become blues proficient fast.

It’s all built around 3 easy steps, starting with…

1) Unlocking the "Freedom Palette"

I learned this from my old mentor (blues guitar maestro Kenny Burrell.) He called it a palette because he saw the blues as a simple framework any artist could use. This opens a door where other musicians and listeners can really look at you. What you do with this freedom palette shows your story of what you have to say.

Learning this is fundamental to blues guitar mastery. You have to become familiar with the basic progressions, chords, rhythms, and also where to start plugging in lead guitar. You see, before you begin learning any scales, there is a way to tap into a true blues sound using simple ideas. Ideas that are much more of a “plug-n-play” approach vs theoretical.

From there, you want to move on to…

2) Bass lines and riff patterns

Once you start getting a glimpse of the basic structure of the “Freedom Palette”. Next, start working bass lines and riff patterns through the blues. Understanding this, will not only bring more clarity to point #1. But it also will help you start to unlock the formulas lurking under the surface of many of your favorite songs.

For example, recently a guitarist commented on a Beatles song lesson I posted online. I'm going from memory but they said something along the lines of…

“I have no idea where you’re getting the blues from this…”

This is because they can’t see the “Freedom Palette” and the overall structure behind the notes and chords. Without this learning songs takes a lot longer. And many students end up with what I call “Big Binder Syndrome”. This is being stuck with a huge binder of songs on their music stand, and very few they can play. When you understand the underlying patterns you actually start to side-step memorization. You don’t need to memorize, you just know. At this point, these budding blues aficionados are now ready for…

3) Scales and vocabulary

Learning the most important scale patterns for the blues is essential. It’s also a great tool for understanding and unlocking the fretboard. This helps you not get stuck in certain “boxes” on the neck. And lets you open up every area of the fretboard. 

This is important for not only your lead guitar playing but also your rhythm. Once you start plucking through the basic scale patterns, then you want to add some vocabulary. This is where you start learning to speak the true language of the blues. This concept is very deep.

But without vocabulary, you’ll end up with dull and boring solos. Many guitarists get stuck in what I call, “Pentatonic Purgatory” and never escape.

*****

So those are the 3 easy steps. From there, your next step is to start putting all 3 of these steps together in real blues examples.

This is the exact path I walk my students through. If you're interested in learning more, grab my free blues scale guide here to get started and you'll find out more from there:

Yours for better blues guitar,

Jon MacLennan