Musical Style: Blues/Rock
Skill Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Focus Technique: 1 4 5 progressions walking up to chords
Combination of various runs and walking notes to the next chord.
Perfect for beginner/intermediate players working rhythm playing.
The blues-rock style of guitar playing is so much fun as it gives a lot of room and freedom for creativity and improvisation. When listening and learning blues progressions and riffs, it’s a great idea to focus on the small nuances being played but then, fairly quickly progress the riff to something of your own. This style should be played with and changed. Whilst it’s great to learn a guitar lick or guitar riff perfectly as another guitarist has played it. I always like to push it to become something more original.
This particular riff is loosely based on the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan, an incredible guitarist from Dallas Texas. Stevie Ray Vaughan always had a great skill of changing what he heard to make it his own. Though you can obviously hear his influences in his playing, whenever he plays, it’s still distinctively his own. Where possible take a leaf out of his book and make the music you play your own.
Here is a link to a video that shows this same kind of feel with a blues lick at the end to turn the piece around and lets it start over again and repeat. Blues in E with Fill
Once you have learnt how to play this original lick, riff or progression, take some time to start adding other stylistic techniques to it. For example, you can replace slides with hammer-ons, replace hammer-ons with bends, replace reverse slides with pull-offs and generally mix it up. Whilst its always a good idea to learn new styles and techniques of playing, don’t discount your own original style. Like all things, a holistic and balanced approach to learning is always best.