Naive post from a harmonica and blues newbie. I have been playing for a year and have been through the beginner to boss and breakthrough blues courses. Both absolutely fantastic and they helped me reach a decent technical level. I practice about 1h a day. In terms of playing actual music, my initial goal was to accompany my wife, who is a good guitarist and singer, with a rock/folk/pop repertoire (Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Neil Young, Pogues, Ben E. King, Moriarty, etc.). It works great, we play c. 15 songs together and are having a lot of fun playing for family and friends.
NOW … I want to play blues, but I really don’t know where to start and where to go. I love the sound of blues and have started listening to many songs from the greats, but my blues culture is close to zero. I find a massive amount of free material on youtube, but mostly licks/riffs. I want to play full songs in a self-sufficient way (and eventually convince my wife to play blues as well). Any advice as to how best I could move forward on this path. I am a bit lost tbh.
I’m super intrigued by this question also, in regards to there being some sort of “roadmap” - and it’s why I didn’t focus on blues as a beginner since it would be easy to get trapped in “beginner purgatory” of licks/youtube tutorials, and instead focused on the fundamentals (understanding sheet music, what rhythm ACTUALLY is, etc)
Even though it’s’ not “blues-specific”, I think, if you are every “out of things to do/learn”, keep returning to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9uwqQ-FvOY
Also, as someone who “hasn’t done this yet” I think a good thing to try is pick out a blues performer (like sonny terry) and try to imitate him as much as possible
If you like the slower smoother blues Toots Theilsmen play on an album produced by Quincy Jones titled You’ve Got it Bad Girl produced in 1973. I cannot find it but you can listen to a couple of the best songs on U Tube.
1 Eyes Of Love
2 Love Theme Getaway Forever
If you can determine the notes these two will be great. He uses a chromatic but I would give it a try on a slider of diatonic. I can get fairly close listening to them but cannot find the music, just not good enough to listen and get the music by ear yet. Hope this helps and if you find them please post your source.
@kefferic How is bending coming along for you? It’s kind of the heart of blues. You might want to review Module 4 (bending) and Module 7 (One Man Banding) from Beginner to Boss. If you get the one-man-band stuff happening, your wife might get inspired to join ya!
Also, the first 6 songs in this vid would be good melodies to learn:
For the first 6 songs I teach a beginner way in each section as well. “Got Love if You Want It” (song #1) is a great one!
Bending is going great actually, all holes, in tune, in rythm. I would not have bet on that 6 months ago, when I was about to totally give up on bending. You gave me some good advice at the time and most importantly your B2B lessons got me through it. The method is just fantastic (but you have heard that millions of times already ). I am also about to finish JP’s breathrough blues course. Good method as well.
Improvisation is definitely one of my weak spots - I am definitely not a natural and struggle a lot. So while this takes time to develop, I am looking for full songs with tabs. And I also need to develop my blues culture!
). I am also about to finish JP’s breathrough blues course. Good method as well.