(Wow, my third post in a row).

Hey, everyone. I've been working my way through the Real Book at my teacher's suggestion to work on shells and extensions, but - and this is probably going to sound lame - I don't know any of the songs. I probably know maybe 25 of the songs in the entire book. I'm playing with a big band but I see it as a stepping stone. It's not what I want to be doing.

Part of the reason I switched from the piano to the guitar is because I fell into the trap of playing jazz ballads. They're easy to play and hide behind the damper pedal, but I never listen to jazz. I'd much rather learn how to play the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughan (my hero), and other pop tunes.

Is there such a thing as a fake book for modern rock/blues? I don't mean one from the 1940s. I'm in a strange position because I understand a ton of music theory and have played the piano pretty much my whole life, but not how I really want to play. Are there books that can help me transition from My Funny Valentine to Superstition?

Doogie

From where it sounds like you are currently at in your guitar journey, I highly recommend Blues Guitar Unleashed However, if you are just looking for song books then Justin Sandercoe has hundreds of song lessons for free and also sells printed song books.

Okay, I'll give this a look. Thanks.

Doug

There are very few shortcuts to great Blues guitar. Actually seeing a great player is still the best method sitting across from the teacher while watching their hands.

Our own Eric Blackman has some excellent tutorials on YouTube. I simply searched "learn blues guitar" a found scores of free sites.

Also, visit the website of your favorite guitarist, they normally link you to great learning sites.

Don

PS: It's been quoted that our fingers also have excellent memories. You may consciously forget a tune that you had played years earlier but your fingers won't forget.

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.

Very well stated, dear friend.

Wow, great advice. I'll try this today.

I love jazz, but I guess not everyone can. Take a listen to this song for a jazzy rock sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q.

I second justin sandercoe for breadth of knowledge. His website has something for everybody. Even after 40 years of playing I find stuff on his site.

I hear your pain. I never got really excited about learning a bunch of pop tunes from the 40's and 50's. Who really wants to play Autumn Leaves?

Although not a blues guy one player who really opened my eyes on the guitar is Bill Frisell. Specifically his notions of what to add to the repertoire. He seems to be willing to take many more modern pop/rock/folk/blues tunes and work out jazz arrangements of them.
For example, how many instrumental versions of Dylan's "Masters of War" can you think of?

Listen to the blues greats. Over and over again.
Eventually you will begin to find pieces of their licks on the guitar.

Then you can find your own voice

Remember, even Stevie Ray played Kenny Burrell (Chitlin's Con Carne).

Here's great blues tune by one of the greatest blues/jazz guitar players of all time. Well, maybe its just me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQyHxVTXVrM

No Mrgeeze it is not just you. Kenny Burrel is one of my favorite jazz/blues players.
I really liked it when he teamed up with Jimmy Smith on the B3. Blues for Dell is another great one to listen to for jazz/blues players:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9Vq_yzBag

{edit} typo

marioD,
Kindred spirits I think we are.
I love the B-3 stuff he did with Jimmy Smith.
Pretty much anything on a B-3 (Booker T, Santana, Meters, Allman Bros,Joey D., Jack McDuff)i dig.

Booker T's recent outing "Potato Hole" is pretty listenable. A bit heavier than the original MG's funk (Neil Young has a way on the guitar) but still some catchy melodies.

Another lesser well known guitar guy who knocks me out was Freddy Robinson.
He recorded a couple of albums back in the 70's with John Mayall.
One of them was called Jazz Blues Fusion.
I wore that vinyl out way back when. Still listen to the CD(mp3).

He has some of the tastiest solos I have ever heard on a guitar on that album. The cascades of notes are just beautiful. Worth checking out.
His other albums I have found don't seem to have the same punch to it. Maybe he just had a little more time to stretch out on the Mayall stuff.

Mario, good call on Kenny Burrell and Blues For Del!

Grant Green was also a great jazz/blues player. Here's one of my fav's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvthzbBFCmE

Frank

Mrgeeze yes I think that we are kindred spirits! I also love all B3 stuff. Jimmy Smith is one of my favorites and I have a lot of his vinyl as well as a his Retrospective boxed CD set.

In fact back in the mid-late 60's I was in a trio consisting of guitar, drums and a B3. Scott, our B3 player, had bass pedals thus we didn't need a bass player. Scott and I played in bands from those times until about 15 years ago. I still see him about twice a year as he lives in Florida and I live in New York State.

I'll have to check my old John Mayall Vinyl as I bet I have heard Freddy Robinson. The name does ring a bell.

PS - I'm glad those B3 days are over (Scott changed to synths around 1970). The sound was great but moving all that stuff got old, and heavier, fast!

[edit] - typo

Frank, good call on Grant Green. I have his Retrospective boxed CD set. He changed the way guitarist used chords. He was a master.

If you want to learn none-for-note SRV, then buy one of the many Tabbed books out there. Many players begin this way, then use their own initiative, imagination and hard work to develop their own--but related-improvisational style.

Cheaper--and probably better--would be to work out the chord progressions to a song that interests you. (BIAB and the internet will help you if you're not sure.) Play along with the record, and learn to listen to what's being played. You play the rhythm first, then bit by bit use the theory you know to approximate SRV's fills and solos. The internet is full of tabs. Some are very good, most are ok and lots are lousy.

To get a feel for basic blues styles (but not actual songs that you know), the PG Music Blues guitar courses with Danny Casavant are easy to use and very helpful.

John

SRV is very hard for a beginner. First he tuned to Eb with very heavy strings, then also he used a kind of rotary action with his right hand which makes for very complex rhythmic patterns. Not that I could play anything of his note for note. It's a bit like taking on Jimi Hendrix or Van Halen.

I would suggest listening to some older blues players and building up your skills. My personal favourite would be the late, great, Freddy King. As a general move it's good to start adding in jazz extensions into your playing. Mickey Backer had a great series of books but they're probably 60 years old now.

There are many other great books and of course Youtube. If I were you, I would start to learn solos and songs from recordings. Years ago I learned the solo to Johnny Be Goode. I still use it. There's a link that I put on this site to a really ancient recording of a series of lesson by Kenny Burrell that is absolutely soaked in wisdom and approaches.

It sounds like maybe you're ready to move away from scales and patterns to listening to what you play and making up your own melodies. As Kenny Burrell says, sing, whistle or hum short melodies and then play them. If you find that too hard, learn to replicate nursery rhymes, Xmas carols, folk tunes etc, in different positions and on different combinations of strings on your guitar. Great for ear training.

Finally, don't just mess about. Pick one thing and practice. That makes for fast development. I spent a month on bar chords and cracked it. The same with scales and modes. Then I wasted 15 years playing what I knew - wasting time essentially.

Absolutely finally, try to always play with a metronome. Nobody seems to, but I believe it will save you 5-10 years of playing out of time and being useless in a band situation. Just my thoughts.......

^^^^^^^^^^

Some very good advice lambada, especially practicing with a metronome to get your timing tight and singing, then learning how to play melodies for ear training.

When I first started playing lead back in the late 60s/early 70s tab hadn't been invented yet, and there were no books that taught you how to play rock/blues. No lessons either where I lived, except for classical stuff.

My hero at the time was Clapton, but he was way beyond what I was capable of. It wasn't until I heard Albert King that I felt I was getting someplace, he was playing slow enough so that I could figure out his licks, and over the period of a couple of months I learned by ear every solo from his "King of Blues Guitar" album. Which of course is a pretty good lesson in the blues scale played in different positions on the neck. Plus once I learned those licks as Albert played them, I would recognize the same licks when Clapton or others played them.

Albert King, in my opinion, is a better guy to start learning the blues from than Freddie King, his style is a little easier to learn. SRV used tons of licks from Albert BTW.

A couple of other early blues guys to listen to/learn from that are not that hard to figure out: Otis Rush and Magic Sam.

I think every guitar player could benefit by The Edge a good listen. I say that because he does not try to dazzle with technique, instead works a style that provides an element of distinction to the band without being overbearing. My favorite U2 songbook was "Rattle and Hum."

One of the roadblocks is that breaking out the guitar track is something you are on your own. The Lenrd Skynrd song books tend to do a good job of notating the guitar work.

I wish I had paid more attention to tabs in the past. I had no way of knowing, back then, that the internet was going to blow the tab scene wide open. Chordie is a good place to start, but sure you could turn up plenty of tab material. There are guys who do little more than tab solos for a hobby.