Tommy Emannuel even said that the trickiest part is getting your thumb to cooperate. There is a disconnect between your thumb (the muscle) & your brain (the memory). When thumb picking; each new song will present a new challenge for your brain & thumb... or whatever you've been given. The beauty isn't just in the song, but the feeling you get when you finally have the control to do it. It's a dexterity exercise that can take months to master each song or portion of... Even professional guitarists practice for months to rewire there brain to achieve a lick or a few intervals without flaw. Do it laying on your back in the dark. Close your eyes, keep the thumb going & practice the riffs. It's a meditation.
i learned this, and ever since i've been wearing sunglasses all the time, even at night, and been saying things like "sho nuff", "big legged woman", and "oh lawd."
There is something miraculous happening here after persevering with this lesson for a few hours... my guitar now appears to be haunted by the ghost of someone who might actually be able to play a little! ;-) I've only 'mastered' the first few bars, but there's enough there to experiment with and keep me amused for days. I look forward to building on this foundation thanks to your careful tuition. Thank you very much indeed!
I'm revisiting this video to (finally!) get round to studying it all the way to the end. It was getting into the groove with the first few bars of this piece which kick-started the dormant blues in my fingers, and that's led me to develop new skills which are helping me tackle pieces which used to be way out of reach. The 'feel' of the delta blues is /so/ satisfying that it inspires me to practice long after I'd normally give up. The blues needs playing, and a bit of finger-dyslexia isn't going to get in the way! So the last six months have turned me from someone who enjoyed occasional dabbling to someone who -- with a following wind and no broken nails -- can sound like an actual guitar player. In fact I startle myself sometimes, listening to what's coming out of my guitar; it used to be mainly dust and long-lost plectrums, now it's music. Where was RU-vid 35 years ago when I got my first guitar and learned to be frustrated and embarrassed by my lack of ability? Thanks for the inspiration, John.
Blues Guitar Institute , Blues Guitar Institute in the traditional end of to make these blues footprint, just does not have brightness like the open G-end. I even tried to use this tuning to play my blues, but I did not get anything, it was very difficult after the chords and the notes are not in the same place as the traditional ending.na finacao . na finacao tradicional da pra fazer essas pegada de blues, só não tem brilho como a finacao em G aberto. Eu mesmo tentei usar essa afinacao pra tocar meus blues , mais não consegui nada, ficou muito difícil depois que os acorde e as notas não estão no mesmo lugar como na finacao tradicional.
Been practicing this for about 3 weeks now, I can play half of it, and I will play all of it at some point, I don't care if it takes me 6 months or a year ! Great lesson thank you.
I just started a few days ago with this lesson. I call it "The 1-30 Blues" for myself. No other lesson on youtube has made me coming back to it so persistently (?) like this one. You're a great instructor with the right tempo. Best regards from Munich, Germany.
67 years old...quit guitar in my 20s and plum forgot everything...retired and got an acoustic a few months ago and just been fooling around with no direction...this is what I want to learn.
Hey that's my story exactly. I love this music also and am working on learning pentatonic scales etc. Great lesson..... more at my speed, not to say it is easy....
Much appreciated. I've played guitar for 45 years...however, I always learn something new. I got a lot out of this lesson...the few added notes, snap on the D string, half-sharpened G and the icing bits on the turnaround. For you young folks out there, it's the 'approach' more so than getting every note correct...especially in the Blues. Slow down and concentrate on rhythm. Its ok to be a bit sloppy on the chords. The precision will come.
66 yrs old you & few others have just taught this ol timer so much in the past 3wks i can't believe what i am hearing. Just may be the only way I'll get down to the delta.
The basic problem is that many of us who have been playing for years have developed some poor habits that are very hard to reverse or unlearn. Thanks for the tutorial and constant encouragement.
I was refused to bend, tap & slide, i called it "my style", Duane Allman opened my eyes to use slide, im doing some tap tne bending is pending to add to my play, finger picking looks very hard to me, i have some time trying it. Forever begginner.
One bad habit to correct in everything is consistency (wink) A judge asked of a psychologist who saw my daughter for a year while detained to reveal what he learned and the judge was shocked at his answer Your honor, Al! I can tell you is she is consistently inconsistent.
Now --this is what I have waited years for --you are a masterful teacher --NOW I am beginning to understand how to solo over the E blues---thankyou so much ----cant afford premium membership --(pensioner )but I can now learn from your patient style quite easily --thankyou !!
I've really enjoyed learning this. I don't think it could sound more magic with so few notes. I was having difficulty counting for quite some time until I realized that the example is a 13-bar blues. The first four bars are stretched into five. I've cut out a couple of bass beats to bring it back to a more conventional song structure. If playing it unaccompanied, or without a song, the extra notes may as well stay there as it gives it even more open space, which is one of the appealing features of this. Thanks John, this is really a great arrangement and lesson.
This is.a really good lesson on the steady delta riff sound: I wish this was available 50 years ago; I would have been enjoying this for a lifetime:: thanks
Thank You so much for teaching this. I Love The Delta Blues and have been wanting to learn in this style for a long time. You are a really good teacher and the video was clear and easy to understand. Thanks again.
Love your work, John. Thank you for the amazing stuff you give us. This guitar stuff is all sooo difficult until it falls into place like magic! Such a good feeling when your guitar starts playing amazing stuff. High five and thank you from all of us.
Hey folks, a couple of comments below about this being 13 measures. It is. The first 4 thumps on the low E String are intended to be the count-in but then I took some liberties with the progression and stretched out the E part to a 5th bar making the progression actually 13 bars. Sorry for the confusion, sometimes you just get caught up in the feel of things. :) Play On!
Exactly what I wanted. 25 years of metal and the only attention that I paid to this style of guitar was memories of the movie "Crossroads" out of the blue today I just thought why the hell don't I know how to play like that? Just with that I'll be off to the races and put the slide back on, great lesson!
Good day, I look forward to watch your next video. It is always good to watch you teach us about the real thing you are the best inspiration guy fill with inspiration. Thank again.
John, I just had this show up in my recommended. I think this would have been better for me to start out with as it’s not as lick intensified. Maybe I will start here and work my way up to the other video we have been communicating on. I promise I won’t let you down dude. I’m going to work at this everyday. Everywhere I go even without the guitar my thumb is always going, even in the car on my steering wheel. I’m thumping it along. I gotta get this down. I’m super pumped to someday show you a video of me once I can fully do this. I know it takes patience and willingness and I’m more then ready to give that all I got. Thanks a million
This is a great entry lesson to the delta / dead bass thumbpicking style of acoustic blues. I helps to separate the thumb from the fingers but without a lot of fancy fretwork to get in the way. Take it nice and slow and I think it will be a great starting point. I also have a couple of "fingerpicking exercises" video on my channel that I think you'll get alot from. Here's one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DuPgSagCKds.html
Richard you sound super pumped to get this. Good luck man. I have never played guitar in my life. Always wanted to. A while back I went down to part time work in order to care for my elderly mom who is on hospice. Lots of down time. So I bought a little Yamaha acoustic and hope to match your drive to practice and figure it out. Always loved the blues and this lesson is exactly the sound I'm aiming for. I'm working on basic chords of course. But soon I'm gonna get this! Good luck again! Did I mention my fingers hurt like heck? Lol
Gregory Webster Gregory, thank you for sharing your story with me. I just went to you’re page and subscribed to you’re channel. Hope to someday see you finger picking this style. I noticed you got into the freight train with Tony... that was a good lesson, I can now finger pick the entire song :) but like you this is the style I like it’s just so down right smooth and gritty at the same time I love it. I’ve got some videos on my channel of me playing but be warned I’m still in the beginning stages. I know basic chords and just started doing scales :) wishing you all the best on you’re journey and hope you share some videos as well on you’re channel, I like doing that because it builds my confidence. Sorry to hear about you’re mom, I to care for my father. He has cirrhosis of the liver and is in the late stages. I’ve only just turned 30 so this has been very hard for me to do and playing guitar has been an amazing escape for me. God bless you Gregory, you got this man don’t ever give up keep practicing until you can’t get it wrong :) cheers
Just got a Taylor mini mahogany I put down my electric guitar... now I just want to learn the roots Blues I finger pick mostly now trying to learn the thumb pick, it's difficult, these lessons are fantastic I've subscribed, I'm going to watch everything I can, you're great thank you
After being my daughter 48 years, baby girl now wants one of my guitars to learn to play. I think I might try starting her here. It's not as tricky as a "Pony Blues".....Nice.
It takes a good bit of dedicated practice on basic pluck and pinch exercises and learning tunes in this style. We break it down a good bit on this channel.
Got a link? You've got quite a lot of material to sift through, my friend. :) I'm aggravated with myself because I am reasonably proficient with clawpicking patterns where my middle and pointer fingers drone a string above 6, but getting the same effect with my thumb feels very different. Though maybe part of my problem is the patterns I am practicing don't have any spaces where I play the drone twice without another string in between, and I haven't tried picking two strings at once.
Well, after three weeks of daily practice I'm decent at it. This was one of the most uncomfortable things to practice, mentally: it feels really dreadful and unproductive until it (very slowly) starts to click.
Thanks for the lesson. I like watching and listening. Sometimes it seems tab is a false crutch. Learn to keep that base steady by only playing a very few of the upper notes, then gradually add them in. Like a previous comment, I am a bit confused with the 13 measures.
Its 1 in the morning, ive never actualy tried to play the guitar, i play piano, 1 hour of practice using this video and i can improv with this, thank you so much
This is actually kinda hard like scratching your head and rubbing your stomach.i thought I was a pretty good guitar player till I tried this . I guess it's time to practice.
Thanks, great lessons. Being the beginner that I am I was wondering with the slow tempo recap you are doing at 6:00 min mark and forwards. Do you count this as 1, 2, 3, 4, 1,2,3,4? Are the "licks" supposed to start always on 1? Hope you understood. Best regards from Finland.
Good morning, greetings from Peru, I am learning blues empirically and I would like to ask you if it wouldn't be a bother if you could give us the tablature for this course, it's great, thank you very much and good day
Good lesson, my only complaint, and it’s an issue in a lot of your videos, is that you don’t usually explain your timing. If you could just dumb down a little for us who have bad rhythm it would really help. 1 & 2 &a 3&.... As for those that think it’s too fast, if you press the 3 vertical dots in the corner of the video you can slow the video right down. Thanks for the lesson!
Thanks! This one is available in my membership. I've got a 100 pack of lesson tabs that I give away if you head to bluesguitarinstitute.com you can grab them
very nice lesson :) ... but this style sounds actually more like texas blues instead of delta sound?...nevertheless, this is what i'm looking for right now, i find this texas blues picking in standard tuning much more difficult than a sliding vestapol or open g style because of the straight bass rhythm and the floating melody like mance lipscomb or juke boy bonner reached in their later careers, in front of very slow playing like you said but also in fast boogie styles when you wanna make chord changes sound very smooth and let one chord slide into another
More like 13-bar blues. Staying in E for 5 bars instead of 4 in the beginning messes it up. I wish you had corrected it before uploading. Great lesson nonetheless, thank you. Edit: I just sew your comment explaining this issue. Pinning that comment would've been nice. Anyway. I'll check your other videos. If they're like this one, I'll subscribe for sure.
I'm a beginner and there's tons of lessons that require subscriptions. I wish lessons could be bought without a subscription because i would like to just purchase this one lesson here. I'm toying with the idea of becoming a member. Do your lessons come with the tabs?
Hey and thanks for the comment. The lessons on my compositions come with tabs. That's 99% of the lessons on the site. Only a few copyrighted songs don't include the tab but this lesson definitely includes tab!
really having trouble with playing both the e string and the melody at the same time. i feel like I'm trying to write a short story with my left foot while juggling chainsaws. where do i thump? where do i pluck?🤯
Would be nice if you had some close ups and slowed down a little. Your intro was nice and short though. You could also explain to beginners how you mute a bass note.
So is delta blues just parallel major voicings over minor harmony? I literally know nothing about music theory. It's like word soup sometimes, just so happens I got a song in my head that be constantly playing. So if anyone can tell me the theory, well I'd be much appreciated if you catch my meaning. Lol so it's just parralel keys? Instead of playing just a major chord, you play either the parallel key, so A minor, or cmajor?
I'm mot practicing enough. That the truth. But I start one of your lesson series and then I can't find it again. So my lesson taking is so disorganized.
