Every guitar player on earth should be familiar with the 12 bar blues. It doesnt matter if you're into hard core death metal or acid jazz, everyone should know it. If you're on a mountain in Mongolia and meet a man on a horse who threatens to kill you unless you do a blues jam with him (with his guitar made completely out of parts from a Jak), this lesson might save your life!
This is my take on a standard 12 bar blues in E. I set it up by playing 12 bars of rhythm followed by a 12 bar solo. Like I wrote in the previous lesson about being the whole band yourself, you gotta be very focused on time and groove. I've also added a lot of chord tricks and licks every here and there to make it sound a little fuller than just playing the old rocknroll power chord - to - 6 chord on the bottom strings. The trickiest part about this one though is that there's a shuffled eight note rhythm part that goes through out the whole piece (with a few exceptions) and also during the solo.
I play the lowest note (the bass note which sits nicely on the root of the corresponding chord) with my pick and then I use my fingers to play all the solo stuff at the same time. If you're new to this kind of playing, you're gonna find that the pick does not at all want to play a steady shuffled eight note rhythm while the rest of the fingers are doing all the fun stuff. My advice here is to start sloooow. It's the syncopation that's gonna throw you off the most so be patient.
As far as arranging this thing goes I've used a bunch of different techniques. I use alot of double stops (most frequently in thirds) and there's also a couple of open string licks. This is pretty much a country guitar trick but it works very well in blues as well. I also use some bends here and there which is the epitome of the blues sound.
I would definitely recommend that you try this one with a thumb pick so you get your index finger free to pluck strings with. Makes life a whole lot easier (once you got used to having a pick attached to your thumb).
Once you master the 12 bar blues you can play about four hundred billion songs so its pretty good to have for the song bank.
Please let me know if you have any questions/comments.
