Easy + Recognizable Blues Guitar Riff For Beginners
Learn how to play this super recognizable bluesy guitar riff for beginners!
I will show you how to play this lick on a blues, using 3 easy cowboy chords: A, D and E. Then we go over how you could use this riff to play on the blues in any key, using those same 3 chords as an example.
Get the Worksheet That Goes With This Lesson!
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The above link also contains the PDF for the “Blues Chord Changes in A” as well as an EXCLUSIVE Blues Backing Track! –
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 – INTRO
0:54 – PLAY IT DURING THE TURNAROUND
1:39 – BASED ON THE A7 CHORD
1:57 – BREAKDOWN
2:52 – NAILING THE RHYTHM
4:57 – SLOW PRACTICE-ALONG
5:31 – USING IT IN CONTEXT
Being the most useful and most used blues lick of all time, it’s worth it to take a moment to discuss how and why we use it in the first place! The turnaround is the final part of the blues.. when we look at the chord progression, or even the lyrics to a blues, it follows a simple three part formula:
1) Statement
2) Repeat or re-iteration of that statement
3) Conclusion to the statement
The conclusion is also known as the turnaround. That’s where we get ready to go back to the beginning and do it all over again! And it’s the best place to play a really cool lick because the person singing is done saying what they have to say, and it gives the instruments a chance to say what they need to say!
As for the lick itself, it’s based on the A7 chord. We start by taking a look at the chord shape and the fingering for it which is very important as we’ll be using this fingering to play our lick. We break the lick down, figure out all the notes and then we take a lot of time nailing the rhythm.
The rhythm is just as important as the notes – people tend to focus on scales and all that – but the truth is, rhythm deserves just as much, if not more, attention because it makes a bigger difference!
Once we’ve discussed the notes and the rhythm we play it together nice and slow and then we figure out how to use it in context, using it in the blues so that when you go to a jam session, you’ll be able to bust out this lick and impress your friends!
