The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Hi from me - Mike in Ontario Canada. My musical interest is slow mellow blues guitar (think Snowy White, Gilmour, Melvin Taylor, BB King, Freddy King etc). I'm a semi beginner, even though I'm in my late '60s and I mess around with the the minor pentatonic or blues scale in all 5 positions in all keys. I love spending an hour late at night playing along with slow blues backing tracks on You Tube in whatever key pops up.

Even though I'm not very good, I do my best and I'm trying to come up with "me" licks based on licks of others.

The people that leave me cold are the ones that have to cram in as many notes as possible - un-BB King style.

But that's me!

I see some great resources on this site already.

Zozzie

to our community!

Feel free to ask, post, upload, start a jam or whatever your like...

Thanks Admin! I'll just lurk and read for a while if that's ok. Hey do you know if the Dummies' Blues book is any good or not? I know the 5 positions of minor pent in all keys. A lick library is what I need.

to the forum Mike ('Zozzie').

I'm always happy to see someone sing the praises of slow blues - for years I've been trying to prove to myself that less is more. In my case less certainly more successful as the more notes there are the less feeling my attempts at playing seem to have. I get that same feeling when I listen to good players as well, so it's not just down to my lack of ability.

I liked your list of players - I'd happily spend time listening to them and enjoying the space they leave between the notes just as much as I enjoy the notes themselves. Think I would have some early Peter Green listening thrown in there too.

I'll take the opportunity to agree with you in how much there is to enjoy in playing blues along with backing tracks - an excellent way of learning how to play, and I agree that it's a good idea to be finding the "you" in your playing and in your licks rather than just copying other players note for note. I don't get to do this sort of playing very often any more, but old arthritic fingers and bending blues notes over very much time makes for less fun!

I have a copy of Blues for Dummies in a bookcase, but I should admit it hasn't been off the shelf very often! The book suffers from that problem a lot of such books have - it tries to cover everything about not just blues but also how to play guitar (including how to hold it, how to strum, how to hold down notes on the frets etc) and how to choose your gear etc. As a result it spreads itself a bit thin on individual areas, particularly if you already have a decent initial grounding in the blues under your belt. On the plus side it is refreshingly free of that trick a lot of music instruction books use, which is to bulk up the size of the book with lots of big pictures of famous players, which are of no help in getting the reader playing any better.

I think overall I've found the use of video teaching by good teachers much more value than books. A years worth of unlimited access to Michael "Hawkeye" Herman teaching blues on JamPlay for the price of about 6 such books was very much great value for me for example. Being able to hear and see what is being done to make it sound the way it does is a big plus in my view.

Anyway - I hope you enjoy the forum!

What a great response Viking. Many thanks for that. I forgot Peter Green - I have 2-3 of his CDs in my collection. What a bundle of talent he was for his time.

Yeah on the book - I'm guitar-book poor and I rarely open any of them. They are mostly filler. How many times do we need to see the fingering for an e-chord? But I'll look up the Herman thing for sure. It's time-consuming but I'm probably getting the most "blues" info from YouTube but a lot of times is spent watching stuff that I abort mid vid. I'm probably getting the most out of JustinGuitar.com at the moment.
Again, thanks Viking.

Mike, from the mountains on New Mexico.

Zozzie wrote:Even though I'm not very good, I do my best and I'm trying to come up with "me" licks based on licks of others.

That's the hard part of playing the blues. Face it, we have a fairly small vocabulary, and it's hard to "not" sound like someone else. For me, it's a quest that never ends, and a big part of why I play the blues. I'm not particulary great either, but I am, kind of, finding a sound that's me.

Zozzie wrote:The people that leave me cold are the ones that have to cram in as many notes as possible - un-BB King style.

That is something I struggle with! Gotta let it breathe!

Just another Mike

I wouldn't miss to add the "One and Only" Mike Bloomfield to the list ;-)

Hope you'll enjoy to discuss and post on this beautiful forum which seems to be well protected from "trolls" -except myself

I would chorus together with BlindBoy: Gotta let it breathe!