Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Country Blues Guitar Lesson – How to Compose and Play – EP340

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to compose and play a country blues composition on acoustic guitar. I’ll walk through my thought process for alternating back and forth between chords and lead, while playing the chord changes.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

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Slow Walk-Through

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  1. sunburst says

    I like this much,, anything country and purty like this I like! And yes embellishing a 145 country Melody .. been doing this using circle of fifths and some… very happy country tune great intro listen ! Did this with your silent night this morning.. embellishing chords is totally cool with double stops etc.. ty looking forward to starting this in the morning too!

  2. jimbostrat says

    Sunburst beat me to the punch once again!! Man!! He’s certainly quick!!

    Hey, Brian……….curious if you’ve got Martin Retro strings on this classic old Martin!!?? This sounds great……….I sure wish I could play the clear notes on each string as you do……seemingly effortlessly………I know better but……..even when I feel I’m on target and mastering my acoustic as well as possible (I do admit I’ve been concentrating on the far easier to play low actions and slinkier stringed Tele lately) I mute too many key notes and get a more muddied sound. Patience & practice……..I know but there’s got to be a great method to slowly get all notes to play clearly. This is exactly the type of cool stuff our local Appalachian Historical acoustic player group play often on the courthouse grounds of our city…..plus the exact kind of guitar!! Great fun stuff!! Jim C.

      • Richard R says

        I just read a comment about the song Silent Night, and thought I’d like to share this guitar story. Silent Night was first performed at the village chapel in Obendorf, Austria, on Christmas Eve, 1818. It was accompanied on guitar because mice had eaten through the bellows the the chapel organ. In December, 1968, 150 years later, the college men’s chorus to which I belonged was on a concert tour of Austria and Germany. One of our performances was midnight mass in the chapel where Silent Night was originally performed, in honor of the song’s 150th anniversary. At the mass, I played guitar, accompanying 2 village singers, performing Silent Night is its original version. I’m now 73 yrs old, but I’ll never forget that experience.

  10. Laurel C says

    Awesome instructional lesson. There is so much in this and such a mixed bag of ‘can do’ ideas to use practically from an unexpected arrangement. This is a must see for a ‘road map’ on how a composition is composed with depth. This has opened up new ways of thinking about add-ons, navigating the fretboard and what could be possible. In fact, it has opened up questions too, for example, could a composition be made just using three chords and mainly with their harmonized thirds and sixths and some chromatics thrown in be successful? I would probably have to wait for a lesson on harmonization to know, but its making us think which is all good. Merry Christmas for the gift that keeps giving.

  11. JoLa says

    It would be great to learn to play this very jolly sounding country bluesy song! I especially like how you reveal the song composing process, I think it’s really helpful. Thanks, Brian 🙂

    Just one thing: the .mp3 tracks are embedded under tablature and vice versa (tabs appear as .mp3 file)

  15. Walter D says

    Love it. When you first started playing I thought you were going to play Ripple by the Grateful Dead. Obviously not, but your explanation of the composing process (at least your process) illustrates how a song like that was created. Start out with the chord arrangement, lay down a jam-track with those chords, then play along and embellish, re-record with the embellishments, rinse repeat.

    • Israel U says

      BTW, I can’t practice each and every lesson, of course (although I like them all very much), and I don’t know if and when I get to this one, but I love watching them even without playing them, and in everyone I learn new things. I’m also very happy to see tricks that I already know from other lessons, it helps cement those things, it’s very important. However, in this lesson, among the things I learned, the best one for me is your formula to first set the air with chords, and then playing more lead. I always struggle with how to play both a little chord, than a little lead, and this technique seems very inspiring.

  21. Nick P says

    I’m interested in your comment about just wanting to improvise Brian, because that’s what I want to do … now. I’m 69 and I’ve spent all my life strumming chords to accompany my singing… Pop, rock, folk, country…. But my voice is going a bit with age, yet I still want to play with other people so learning to play lead will allow me to do that for a few more years. And I’ve learnt so much from your lessons in the last couple of years. This one is particularly enjoyable. Thanks…. and Merry Christmas to you and everyone in this community 🎄

  23. Robin S says

    Firstly , Happy Christmas to everyone, especially Brian and Arlo.
    Have only listened to outline of this so far but shall have a go at it.
    In 2021 would it be possible to do some actual old blues like Stefan Grossman used to do, say, Shake That Thing, Candyman, Cocaine,, Stack o’Lee etc,or Howlin Wolf, Rev Gary Davies, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, assume there’s no copyright problem with these ?
    Lastly (again) Happy Christmas !

    Robin from Brexit Island

    • David D says

      It seems like one of the coolest things about this site is that Brian creates new material every week without playing other people’s songs. You can play ” in the style of” and it’s so legally complex if you do earn money playing other people’s material. Licks can’t be copyrighted but if you put too many in a row it makes a song that belongs to someone who deserves their due

  30. Hans says

    Anyone else having the issue with the full screen tab viewer, that clicking on a specific part (to start playing from there again) doesn’t work? In my case, this only works in the minimized/non-full-screen option. When having the full screen tab viewer open, clicking somewhere actually makes the ‘red line’ go all the way at the bottom, therefore not starting at the desired spot…

    Other than that, the song is great and I’m eager to learn it!

  31. Phil W says

    Very helpful . Love that Melody . Santa was WAYYY to good to me this year gave me an very Nice 000 Martin sounds , Well will sound great with your Lessons . Thank you so much and Happy New Year

  32. Rodney G says

    Hi Brian,

    Great lessons! You’ve been giving me some confidence I’ve been lacking. I appreciate all the hard work and explanation you put into every lesson. Quick observation that I may be well of on but hoping for your insight….you mention at the beginning of the lesson that you’re using the A maj pentatonic scale pattern 1, however when I was doing some research, it looks like your actually use pattern 5. Am I way off base here? Anyhow, just want to make sure I’m understanding right. Again, keep up the great work and have a happy 2020.

  33. GuitarNoodler says

    Thanks Brian, renewed my annual lesson today as I let it expire. This Country Blues Lesson is very well done, really enjoy having the tab, would love to see the tab and music in the future. What is great about this lesson is how well you connect it to structuring a song, very well done, that is what I enjoy about many of your lessons. I used to just learn a song, but now I am more interested in structure and improving the song, certainly helps me know what to do next. David

  35. Leigh R says

    Hi Brian, Happy New Year. I’m looking forward to more genius lessons in 2020! Just wanted to say this country blues lesson has been a real light bulb lesson for me. The ‘chords positions all over the fretboard’ concept suddenly makes a whole lot of sense (finally!) I’m so inspired, thank you! Radds

  37. Dale U says

    As always I am impressed with the lessons, personally I like all the extra information that you give in your lesson that pertain to other styles of music using the same riffs with the varied accents and slides. Thank you

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