When I teach my students to play the blues I start with the Am pentatonic scale in the 5th position:

http://www.coniferguitar.com/Scales_for_guitar/page16/Am_pentatonic_scale_guitar.html

Put the chords in either a simple 12 or 16 bar blues in BiaB, pick a blues style, I suggest a slow blues at first, in the key of A then jam along with it.

You can stay entirely in the Am pentatonic 5th position scale for the entire chorus or you can move up to the Dm and Em pentatonic positions. Practice blending the D to an E as well as the G to an A. Prebends work well also. Just use your ears!

If you know theory then you know that you can use the same Am pentatonic fingering starting on the B, 7th fret, and the E, 12th fret while jamming over an A chord. These will give you various extensions of the A chord.

Once you get a handle on this then change the chords to 7th and/or 9th chords.

Don't worry if you don't get it right away, just keep playing. If you ever land on a bad note just remember that the right notes are either one fret up or down.

Have fun and I hope this helps.

PS - watch as many different blues players as possible and see where they are blending notes, adding vibrato, pull offs and hammer ons then try to emulate them.

Note there are books/vids out there that can teach you where to put your fingers but no book can teach you feelings. That comes from the heart.


Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer.
It's called the Heineken Maneuver.

64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware