3 most important things to have when you play the Blues.

About a week ago I asked this question all on Facebook. I have a lot of great answers ranging from the heart, soul, space, feeling, and more. I thought much of this question and after some thought, I came up with what I consider to be the 3 things you must have to play the Blues.

Here's my 3 and an explanation about how I came to this opinion.

1. Capacity

This covers virtually all the technical aspects of playing blues as bend, vibrato, articulation and speed, other technical areas. ?Now that we got this out of the image we can move on. ?It must have ability. ?No matter how much heart and soul that you have, if you do not have any skill that doesn't matter. ?Without it, simply will not be able to play what you want to communicate with the heart and soul.

So how do you get the ability?

It is simple. ?Practice, practice, practice and more practice. ?Once you have the possibility, then can continue for other 2 areas that are equally important.

2. emotional connection

To me this can be very difficult. ?What I mean by emotional connection connects the heart and soul with his hands. ?Even if you can, doesn't mean that you'll be able to communicate to the public, the heart and soul of what is inside you. ?You need to learn how to connect the feeling of your heart, what comes out of his fingers when playing guitar. ?This is not easy in my mind. ?You may not think to impress the public, or on display. ?You must remove all those thoughts out of your head and start to play from your heart. ?Now you'll be able to translate the feelings of your heart to the toes, and can be made an emotional connection.

Have you ever had one of those nights where everything that is great, and is also not looking? ?I Have. ?Somehow things just flow out of you. ?It seems that you can do no wrong. ?Every time you play, it seems that all the emotions that carry are perfectly translated through his fingers as something else took over, and you're just the vehicle for your spirit check your skill. ?It is quite an experience and it is very difficult to recreate only.

To me, it seems that you have to put yourself in the right state of mind before playing in order to achieve this. ?This can also be very difficult because if you start thinking too much about it, then it probably won't happen for you. ?I think it can happen by arriving at a peaceful place in your life where you're comfortable with yourself by playing the music we love for people. If this can happen, then I think the rest will take care of itself.

3. Trust

Now that you have the ability and can translate the excitement from your heart and soul for the fingers, I think we must also have confidence to complete the triangle. ?I can tell you from experience that without trust, then you won't be able to put on a great performance indeed. ?I remember playing a gig once and I had the ability and felt like my mind was just space, but for some reason my confidence was shot. ?I was playing pretty well, I thought, but it seemed that I was very shy and had no confidence in what I was playing. ?Demonstrated too. ?That made it even worse. ?What I'm trying to say is that you must have in mind that you're going to play a concert. ?I do not mean that you have to be arrogant about it, but you have to say to yourself what a great performance that you put in your head.

Thinking about baseball. Think great home run hitters go up to the motto, "I hope that you do not delete." ?NO! ?Should we say, "I'm going to hit this one out the Park! Take her jug! " ?I think that when batters get in collapses that begin to think about hitting, and exit the collapse can be a very mind to build back their confidence once again.

After thinking about this for a while, it occurred to me that all 3 of these are needed. ?You can't play the blues with happened without each of them. ?Think About It. ?If you have confidence and an emotional link but no capacity, does not sound good. ?If you have the ability and emotional connection, but distrust not sound good. If you have skills and confidence but no emotional connection, then you still don't sound good. ?No matter how you stack them, you need all 3.

So there are my 3 important things to the blues playing.

Do you agree? ?Disagree? ?I'd love to hear your opinion. ?Leave one below and start the conversation.

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7 tips to Get You Out of that Rut playing guitar

I have heard so many people tell me that they feel that they are stuck in a rut with their playing guitar and I don't know what to do to get out of it.

In this post I want to give you 7 tips to get from that furrow so many people seem to end up in.

Before going into these suggestions, let me just say that I am in these furrows too. I know how it can be frustrating, and I think that all players eventually find that I'm in a rut of one form or another. Knowing how to get out of these grooves can be a determining factor in whether or not to keep advancing as guitarist.

1. start listening to different styles of music

Sometimes, when we want to learn a particular style of music, we dive in to one style completely. ?This is a good thing, but at some point you may feel tired and unmotivated by learning and listening to the same things all the time. ?I read that Jimi Hendrix was a big fan of classical music, and I think it really shows in his songs. ?I'm really well-versed with lots of guitar parts, but things just seem to flow together as an orchestra of guitars. ?If you're learning guitar blues, try listening to some country, classical, or pop. You can find inspiration through these genres that will give you some new ideas for playing the blues.

2. Take some lessons

It may seem obvious, but a simple way to get from a rut is to take some guitar lessons, private lessons or find on the internet. ?Just watch someone play and explain that something can unlock so much. ?Each has a unique way of playing, and seeing someone else's point of view that you value, can really help to see things in a different light. ? As a teacher of guitar, I can usually hear someone play and give their recommendations on how to get the most out of their reproduction. ?Sometimes you may think you know everything, but having something explained in a new and different way can sometimes open a whole new way of seeing the guitar.

3. stop playing guitar for a week

If you're learning new things, constantly practicing and playing hours per day, there will come a point in time where you just get overloaded and cannot move forward. ?At one point I think it's a good idea to just stop playing for a while and go out and enjoy life. ?Those life experiences and emotions that come from living are what fuel the music in my opinion.

Without emotion in your music, what is good for? ?Music should not to amaze, is supposed to make you feel something. ?Even with great solos, not only the best ones are awesome, but they evoke emotions to listeners. ?Those who are just technically brilliant doesn't seem to involve emotional connection, that the listener is usually looking for. ?The most legendary guitarists, everyone talks about always lived very interesting lives. ?Without these life experiences would not think as legendary status. Clapton, Hendrix, Page and Beck lived lives very interesting which helped, in my opinion the amazing quality of material that they put out.

4. try to learn vocal melodies on guitar

If you're caught in that rut pentatonic and feel only end up playing the same licks around that time, then you should try to start learning the vocal melodies on guitar. ?Amazing vocals have such phrasing. ?Learning these melodies on guitar, you will start to think differently the licks that you are playing. ?Yes it will be difficult, but it will be worth it. ?Will give you a new approach when playing guitar that will make your game more melodic. ?Check out this post to learn more about playing vocal licks. ?Playing voice melodies

5. go to see a live

I can't tell you how many times I came out of a show that was amazing and became truly inspired. ?Seeing a great band with great melodies and musicality can light a fire under you to get out there and create something amazing! ?Go out and see a show this weekend.

6. start learning different instrument

About 7 years ago, I started to want to learn some different tools. ?Sure, I could play a little low, but I played bass guitar for the most part. ?I decided to start learning some piano. ?In particular, blues piano. ?I spent many hours listening to parts of the piano, studying books and practice. ?While I'm not the greatest piano player, I can play some. I even took a lesson in bass from an amazing bass player named Russ Rodgers to GIT in Atlanta. ?He really changed the way I looked and played bass. ?Doing these 2 things, in my opinion also opened my mind as the guitar could work and gave me a new look at how I played guitar and what was possible.

I also tried to incorporate things that I learned about these new tools to play my guitar. ?I'm not saying that you have to learn a lot of new tools, but can be useful if you picked up another tool and started to learn a little about it. ?I think it will help the understanding of the guitar, learning about other tools as well. ?No doubt it will help you understand the music that much more.

7. start learning a different style of guitar tunings

This is a great for me. ?Long ago I decided to learn the slide guitar, and I'm so glad I did that. ?In these days when it arrives in a rut with blues guitar playing, just start playing slide again and I feel inspired and vice versa. ?I also have a Dobro to turn to if both of these types of guitars are not inspiring me.

I also believe that learning new tunings can open a whole landscape unseen unknown territory. ?My Dobro is tuned to Open G, my SG is tuned and open my Strat is tuned to Eb and other tuning my guitars are standard. ?Having so many different tunings available keeps fresh for me. ?Each sounds differently and has different things you can do with them.

Sometimes I think guitarists can get into a mode where the guitar licks and tuning standards can become so well known, it can be difficult to see anything new, because it is so familiar. Throw some tunings in the mix and things start to become unknown territory. ?This is good! ?Some of the best things that I usually have about the incident because I didn't know exactly what I was going to do.

A pianist friend Jason Fuller once told me that sometimes people play better when things are a bit uncertain of where they are going and just trying to be at this time. ?The uncertainty and research can create an exciting blend of tension and excitement that can grab the listener. ?I think that Duane Allman called this hittin' the note. ?Granted this is not always the case, but being aware of this phenomenon helps me to think.

These are just my opinions, but I think some of the things that will work for you, if you try them. ?All of them might not work for you, but these are things that I feel has helped me to get out of ruts playing guitar.

I am currently in a rut? ?What measures are asked to get out of it?

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Open g tuning guitar lesson

In this lesson, guitar, I'm going to show you some tips on how to start slide guitar in open g tuning. Now the first thing that you're going to want to do is put some larger strings on your guitar. I use a set of. 011 ' s. This will make it significantly easier when playing slide if you do this.

The next thing you want to do is to increase the action on your guitar. This will allow you to play cleanly notes with slide without it hitting the keyboard.

Now that you have made these 2 things, you will need to tune the guitar to Open G Tuning. The notes will be from low to high-D G D G B d. notice that the 4?, 3? and 2? strings (strings, D, G and B) are not changed from standard tuning. This is an important thing to realize when learning Open G Tuning. Many different triad chords can be formed as play in standard tuning. If you are playing any guitar, this becomes extremely useful.

Now you should have your guitar tuned all now and ready to play some slide. I say immediately that the key of g major works in Open G Tuning, but in fact you can play in any key with this tuning as well.

Watch the video below to learn how to tune the Open G and how to play chords, G, C and D, this optimization.

Here is an example of something that you can play Blues in Open G Tuning with a slide.

I'm going to be coming out with some open G Tuning Slide lectures early. If you want to be informed about them, please Subscribe to the mailing list. If you're already on my newsletter, then you do not need to register again.

What kind of lessons you would like to see open g? I am in the process of creating these and any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.

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