It is not that easy to come up with a definition of blues. It’s pretty clear that Robert Johnsons’ Rambling on My Mind or B.B. King’s Everyday I Have the Blues is certainly blues, but what about van Halen, Al Di Meola or Pavarotti’s songs? Some may say, you could define the blues by the call-response construction, the dominant 7th chords, the shuffle rhythm, the I-IV-V progression and things like these, but the best overall definition is one that Eric Clapton himself gave to blues music in an interview in 1998:

My definition of Blues is that it’s a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of these things but it’s the two together that make it what it is. And you will need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things by themselves don’t do it. (Eric Clapton, 1998)

A Quick History Lesson

There are many books on the history of blues. It was birthed in the 20th century’s Mississippi Delta in the U.S., immediately after the Civil War. This new music type was played by slaves and white folks referred to it as sorrow songs, plantation songs or workaday songs. The term blues was employed for the very first time around the early to mid 1920′s.

It is believed that the band leader William Christopher Handy was the one to compose the very first blues songs in 1909, which was later printed and documented. The song was at first known as Memphis Blues and received the title of Mister Crump later. He got his inspiration from a blues song he heard in the Mississippi railway station six years previously. William Christopher Handy wrote numerous other songs also, such as Beale Street Blues or St. Louis Blues and nowadays there’s a blues award named after him – the W.C. Handy Award.

What Do You Have to have To Learn To Play the Blues?

In order to understand to play blues guitar, there are a few things you will need. First of all, you want to personal an electric or acoustic guitar with strings made from other than nylon in standard tuning. You also need to know how to read tablature, as well as have some simple guitar understanding and know how to play a few chords. You also want some Eric Clapton CDs with blues classics, such as Blues Breakers, From the Cradle or Eric Clapton Unplugged and a good iPod with an auto-repeat shuffle. There’s also a plug-in for i-Tunes you can use to slow down songs. A small chord book you can come across in any guitar store is also useful. But most importantly, in order to learn to play blues guitar, you will need some good ears.

If you currently have some fundamental guitar knowledge, you can learn to play blues guitar on your own, with the aid of a simple chord book. Then again, finding a blues guitar instructor who is prepared to help you learn to play blues guitar in your region is undoubtedly a good thing. If you have the time and money to take up personal lessons, this will almost certainly help kick along your guitar playing skills.