Authentic Old Times Blues Digital Course

This digital course is a “blues through time” series of structured lessons touching on many of the blues styles from the early 20th Century and how they have influenced modern blues. These lessons do go back to blues' historical roots, but they also take you all the way to the more modern sound championed by favorites such as Eric Clapton, Jack White, Joe Bonamassa, Derek Trucks, Dan Auerbach and so many others.

This course consists of over 2.5 hours of video lessons, ten blues jam tracks, and a detailed scale reference eBook. 

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Blues styles taught include Piedmont Blues, Old School Blues, Country Blues, Delta Blues, Blues Slide, and Texas Blues. Dive into the blues styles of guitar legends Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Howlin’ Wolf/Hubert Sumlin, Earl Hooker, and Freddie King. Plus gear and tone lessons, finger style blues, early blues styles, and so much more!

You won’t just learn about them. More importantly, you’ll also learn how to play them — as well as the elements they consist of. I’m talking about: blues devices, techniques, chords, rhythms, lead lines, grooves, fills, licks, chord devices, exercises, slide licks, soloing strategies, scales, and much more.

And not only that, but we also teach how you can apply these blues techniques and devices to your everyday playing. The coinciding jam tracks you get with this course are perfect for this. 

Lessons in this course include:

Gear and Tone Lesson - How to dial in a good bluesy tone. Learn about guitars used in these styles as well as the guitars that we utilize throughout the lessons. You'll also learn how to set up your amp, pedals, and the settings for getting the sweet spots for ultimate bluesy tone. Learn about reverb and getting the amp to respond to your playing dynamics.

Old School Finger Style Blues - Learn the basics of finger style guitar utilized in old school blues. Learn the finger style approach and how to keep good rhythmic time. Learn to voice chords in this style and add melody notes. We break it down and go over each finger and how to syncopate the fingers together to play both bass notes and melody lines. We build on each of the moves, adding to them as we move through the lesson and work them up to fun bluesy progressions in this style.

Early Blues Styles - early 20th Century blues and learn the elements of these styles. Learn about this style’s consistent bass line with the thumb, the syncopated melody with the fingers, and progressions. Examine the styles of Country Blues, Piedmont Blues and early Delta Blues. Learn about the unique chord progressions and finger style approaches. Learn to rhythmically move through progressions and keep the beat and feel finger style wise.

Delta Blues Lesson - learn the elements that make up the old Delta Blues style. Learn to still keep the rhythm and bass movements going while playing lead guitar licks and fills. Learn tons of delta licks, triplet licks, slide type licks, bent note licks, turnaround licks, and more Delta fun!

Muddy Waters Inspired - learn his lead guitar style and rhythm devices. Learn his use of the capo and how to move around open string grooves and devices in different keys. Learn rhythmic devices and chords in this style and how to add his stylistic touches. 

Bo Diddley Inspired - learn all about his style of playing grooves, chords and lead guitar. Learn the foundation of so many great rhythmic grooves – the Bo Diddley Beat! Learn cool chords, triads, and chord variations that can be used as soloing devices. We also examine Bo’s approach to tone and effects use. Learn to dial in the Bo Diddley swampy tones using basic effects that you probably have at home.

John Lee Hooker - learn his style of grooves, devices, fills, and licks. Learn to keep the bass line moving with your thumb and melody lines and licks with your fingers. Learn to create mood with the dynamics of how you attack the strings. Learn to add chord device movements while keeping the groove moving. Learn two-note grips chord devices and how to move them around the guitar neck. Learn some foundational Hooker style licks using slides, bends, and vibrato and how to insert them into the groove. Play rhythm and lead at the same time! 

T-Bone Walker Inspired - Learn his unique note selection approaches to parallel minor and major scales. Learn some of his trademark style licks and how to vary them to create even more licks. Learn all about playing longer phrases in this style. Learn about lick phrasing to create variety and different feel in your blues playing. Learn to jazz up your blues progressions up with dominant chords like 9s and 13s. Learn unique and different chord voicings. Learn to play 12-bar blues progressions with 9th chords and how to comp chords for even more sounds. Learn chord soloing devices to add color and flavor to your blues soloing.

Howlin’ Wolf/Hubert Sumlin inspired - examine the style of Howlin Wolf and his guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Learn how to keep a groove going on the low-E string while playing lead around the rhythmic groove. Learn the connection this style has to the older country and delta players. Learn to keep a bass pattern going with your thumb in the low register while we solo up top with our fingers. Learn cool exercises to help learn and practice combining rhythm and lead together. Learn to build licks in the open pentatonic position and pentatonic extensions that are trademark in this style. Learn lots of bluesy licks with attitude utilizing bends and slides.

Earl Hooker inspired - Learn his slide guitar approaches and his style of mixing slide guitar with other licks. Learn some traditional slide licks in standard tuning. Learn to get comfortable with slide guitar by working your scales using the slide. Learn to seamlessly blend single note playing along with slide playing in this style. Learn to replace bends with slides to variations of tonal quality. Learn some unique sounding slide licks with long slide notes.

Freddie King inspired - we examine how some of the devices and techniques we have learned throughout this course have influenced the Texas Blues movement and players like Freddie King. Learn a cool blues intro utilizing double-stops and chromatics, and this device can also be used as a turn around. Learn how to incorporate double-stop licks with thumping rhythmic bass notes. Also learn some cool Texas/New Orleans blues licks as well as more 9th chord usage.

And don’t forget that all lessons feature on-screen tablature and chord lines. So every lick is tabbed out on screen. This makes it super easy to follow along. We break each device and lick down into manageable pieces so they are easy to digest and incorporate into your own playing. These lessons also feature close ups of both the pick and fret hands – so you see the action up close and personal.

In short, stand on the shoulders of greatness and see your blues guitar playing advance to a whole 'nother level!

Questions? Email us at TheNextLevelGuitar@yahoo.com