Jim Duff Music Blog

Growing up in Kentucky, Jim Duff counted the legends of traditional Country music as his heroes. Artists like Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Townes Van Zandt made a huge impact on the young songwriter and helped shape his sound. However, music was not his only talent and life took him in another direction for a while.


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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Guitar Blues Learn Simple Songs

Playing the guitar, learn the blues to learn simple songs and how to essentially take control of the instruments fundamentals. Blues is a style of music that came from down South duing the mid 1800's. There was much suffering in the South during that time and blues evolved out of these dire circumstances.

In order to really understand how to play the blues you have to also understand how the blues works. Not many people will go so far as to really look at the structure behind the music. Blues is known to take on many different flavors too such as funk for instance. Funk music is blues with complex beats and jazzy chords.

Its funny too because all of the jazzy chords all follow the same inherent pattern that is laid down by the basic blues. Jazz chords are just more sophisticated versions of more doltish chords like E for instance. It has 3 notes because it is referred to as a "triad". Therefore its harmony is more straightforward sounding compared to more sophisticated voicings.

So really in essence, most music follows the same precepts insofar as structure is concerned. Its the blues. If you listen to the radio there it is. 90% of all #1 hits were written using the 1, 4, and 5. Thats it.

It seems all too simple to even the seasoned musical mind, but there are hidden complexities that can be discovered by looking a little closer inside this interesting and byzantine system called do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti.

FACT: People who understand the blues write better songs and also have an easier time figuring stuff out quickly too!

FACT: By understanding the backbone structure of pop, you will be able to see deep inside songs you have wondered about and learn to extract their essence and create your own.

FACT: Practice is effective but even 10x more effective if you really understand what you are practicing.

You could write a sentence that says: guitar blues learn simple songs, or you could write one that makes more sense like: learn simple songs for blues guitar.

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