Blues and Scales - Online Guitar Lesson Video

lesson summary

Lesson 5 of 54 in our Rock Series: Blues and Scales

Brad provides background information on the blues. He teaches you the 12 bar blues, 8 bar blues, and the first pattern of the minor blues scale. He examines this scale closely using scale theory.

Chapter 1: (2:23) Introduction Brad plays a 12 bar blues in E with a nice rock and roll flavor. In this lesson, you will learn how blues slowly evolved into what we now know as rock and roll. Brad will give you all of the necessary information to play a blues. He will demonstrate rhythm techniques as well as some scales. These scales are the basic building blocks to playing your own blues solos.

Chapter 2: (0:53) About This Lesson “Blues” is a catch-all term that can refer to many different things. When someone refers to “the blues,” he/she is referring to the genre of music. However, if someone says, “Let’s play a blues,” the person is referring to a specific 12 bar chord progression. This 12 bar form is quite simple. Thus, it lends itself extremely well to spontaneous improvisation. Brad will demonstrate the chords that comprise a 12 bar blues progression. In this lesson, an 8 bar variation on the standard 12 bar form is also discussed.

Brad kicks off the lesson by providing some of the reasons why he loves to play blues:

“The best thing about blues is the feeling you get when you play it.” It’s safe to say that every professional blues guitarist that has ever lived would agree with this simple statement. Blues is a relatively basic form of music. The chord progressions are very simple and repetitive. However, this enables the musician to focus primarily on conveying emotion by playing directly from the heart instead of from the head.

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about Brad Henecke

Brad Henecke: Performing Classic Rock Guitarist

Brad Henecke was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on May 5th of 1963. He has been a fan of music for as long as he & his family can remember. You could always find him running around the farm wailing on his cardboard guitar, pretending to be a member of the rock band KISS. Additional inspiration came during his first concert when he got the chance to see Boston & Sammy Hagar in the early 1970's. This opened up a whole new world of rock and roll music for him; his parents noticed his growing interest in music and enrolled him into guitar lessons when he was 13.

From there he jumped into two years of lessons at a local music store in Cedar Rapids. After discovering Eddie Van Halen, Brad knew that the guitar would always be a part of his life. He took his love throughout the city as he played as a pit musician & jammed at parties for friends.

This made him thirsty for more. He enrolled classes at Kirkwood Community College & also took lessons from the one & only Craig-Erickson (www.craig-erickson.com).

His love for music landed him a gig opening for Molly Hatchet in Cedar Rapids with a band called "Slap & Tickle". He has also played in the Greeley Stampede show for quite a few years with â€œTrue Northâ€.

Brad is currently playing in Greeley, Colorado with a rock band titled "Ragged Doll". They play a wide variety of music with an emphasis on classic rock from the 60's to present, with Brad playing electric guitar in the five piece lineup.

He currently jams on his all-time favorite guitar: a Paul Reed Smith Custom 24. Beyond guitar, he plays also plays drums & bass guitar. He has also been known to thrash a banjo from time to time. He is still actively playing & passing his 31 years of playing experience on to others (you!).

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Blues and Scales | Free Online Guitar Lesson