Kirk's Weekly Guitar Lesson: Los Blues

Hi, fellow picker, I'm back with a new one.

This week I look at a chord progression that, just like the I-IV-V progression of a 12 bar blues, has been used over and over again. It's sort of the minor key counterpart to the familiar 12 bar blues progression, or at least a section thereof. I've heard it used in pop music (Lionel Richie), the blues (Gary Moore) and countless other variations in just about every genre you can name. My version this week is a kind of Flamenco Blues, so I called it 'Los Blues'. It's a fun one to play and open to all kinds of interpretations. As usual, it's a fingerstyle lesson.

Here it is: Los Blues

Other guitar lessons

Member 'solidwalnut', aka Steve Cass, keeps pumping out new lessons, many of which include a movie. The easiest way to see what's new is to go to the list here.

solidwalnut's lessons

PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book

I'm all blurbed out! I've said it so many ways over such a long time that I can't get my brain to come up with anything new to say about my book/DVD. Just go to the testimonials, I'm sure you'll get the idea. Applicable only if you're interested in a fool-proof mapping system for the maze we call a fretboard. Comes in handy for every aspect of playing guitar, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's the easiest and yet most powerful guitar lesson you will ever learn. Check it out here.

Slide Guitar in Dropped-D and Standard Tunings

Slide in open tunings is great, allows you to instantly sound like all the blues players you've heard for years, BUT, you need to re-tune, re-map and re-think music to do it. Why not just stay in Standard tuning? I've been doing it since about 1970 and I can confidently tell you that it's just as rich a tuning as any other. All flavors are there to be slid upon -- major, major7, minor, minor7, aug, dim, 9th, sus4, 11th -- you just need to where to find them. If you'd rather save the time and energy, I've put together a 70 minute DVD doing just that, and a whole lot more. You can also order the best slides going, heavy and machined from solid brass. Find out all about it here.

Enjoy Los Blues ... a member from Spain tells me they actually call 'the blues' 'El Blues" in Spain, not 'los', but it's too late now!

All the best, happy twanging,

Kirk Lorange

http://www.guitar.name