Welcome back! Today I wanna give you one of the best acoustic guitar blues lessons you’ll
have in a while.
I think plain chords sound cool but not original on acoustic guitar. Sure, it’s great for singer
songwriters or for comping a soloist, but in a situation in which you wanna stand out and play
something that leaves people wanting more, you’ll definitely want to play something more edgy
and more unique sounding. When I say edgy, all I can think about are blues players and rock
artists like Aerosmith. Joe Perry is one of the best guitar players on earth; his groove and solos
are just out of this realm.
The lick I’m gonna show you is based on those blues / rock grooves that sound so good that
you just wanna turn on a good old 1959 Plexi and hit an open D chord; yeah, you know what I’m
talking about, twangy stuff. This riff I’m about to show you works great on acoustic guitar and
crunchy guitar. Let’s give it a try:
This riff you just played could replace A7 chord in any progression. It could also replace an A
chord wherever it is, if you wanna give it a bluesy type of sound. You can either use a pick or
play it with a hybrid picking technique. If you choose to play it with a hybrid picking technique,
you generally play the lower notes with a pick and the higher ones with your fingers.
You can also transpose this lick to another key. For instance, you could replace a D7 with this:
Or you could also replace an E7 with this:
Clearly, the pattern is the same in the 3 examples, with the strings being the only thing changing;
The rhythm and the relationship between notes is the same though.
If you were to play this with an acoustic guitar, I would definitely use hybrid picking or even bare
fingers with no pick at all. If you are brave enough, try playing it with a Slide.
This is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and please remember to check out ourentire database of videos here: GuitarControl.com
