Fingerstyle Blues Guitar
Ready to expand your blues fingerstyle skills? In this eight-lesson video course, you'll learn several great-sounding fingerpicking arrangements of well-known songs, such as "St. James Infirmary," "Beale Street Blues," "St. Louis Blues," and more. In each lesson, you'll gain valuable skills like thumb-finger right-hand independence, chord inversions, chromatic passing tones/chords, 6ths riffs, among others. By the time you're through with the course, you'll not only have several pieces added to your repertoire, but you'll have sharpen you fingerpicking skills in general. These videos are designed for the late beginner-early intermediate player looking to improve their fingerstyle skills and learn some great tunes in the process.
Videos
• St. James Infirmary (14:39) - In this first video, Gabe Andrews presents a simplified arrangement of this brooding classic in D minor that includes only bass and melody.
• Beale Street Blues (12:31) - Next, you'll learn a similar bass/melody arrangement for "Beale Street Blues" in A. We've added a bit more movement in the bass here, and the melodies are a bit more active as well.
• Blues in E Minor, Part 1 (14:16) - Learn how to combine a walking bass line with chords on top in this lesson. This is an excellent concept to use when accompanying a singer or other instrumentalist.
• Blues in E Minor, Part 2 (17:25) - In this second part dedicated to accompaniment ideas in E minor, you'll learn all about using chord inversions on top of a constant bass to maintain interest and add forward momentum to the arrangement.
• St. Louis Blues, Part 1 (17:22) - In this first version of "St. Louis Blues," in A minor, you'll get practice keeping a rhythmic bass pattern going while playing an independent melody on top.
• St. Louis Blues, Part 2 (16:50) - The second version of "St. Louis Blues" is in A major and features plenty of chromatic passing tones and some colorful chords as well.
• Miss Delta (07:52) - In this slow blues piece in E, you'll see lots of passing chords, melodies in 6ths, contrapuntal-style independence between the voices, and a few other tricks as well.
• Folk Blues Guitar (08:09) - In this final video, Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna) shows you how to play "I Know You Rider" in the key of A.