In this guitar lesson you will learn how to play a simple blues base line in the key of E. It's important to use first position fingering at this stage, since it will help to reinforce your awareness of the fretboard. You will find this base run to be a great exercise too, since all your fingers will be involved.

Try to keep your arm relaxed and relatively straight from your elbow through to your wrist. This may be a little difficult when trying to reach for the lower strings, but do not hyper-extend your wrist as this will create undue stress. When the wrist is stressed over a prolonged period of time it can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a very common injury of musicians and can be quite disabling. So, be careful when practicing this guitar lesson, not to overdue it. If your hand begins to feel tired, take a break! You need to give yourself time to develop strength and coordination skills when you are new to playing the guitar.

This base line is intended to compliment the basic 12-bar blues rhythm covered in lesson 9 .

If you have access to a tape recorder, you can record the rhythm part and then practice playing the base line along with it. Or, if you have a friend who plays the guitar, one of you can play the the rhythm, while the other one plays the base line. Be sure to alternate with each other so that you can practice both parts.

You will also notice these symbols > > above the notation. They are called accent marks. An accent mark simply emphasizes the duration of a beat slightly. In this case the first down beat of each pair of eighth notes is emphasized. So, you would strike the notes that fall on the numbered part of the count a little stronger and the &'s a little lighter.

One of the best things you can do to help increase your understanding of the blues is to listen to some recordings. Eric Clapton's acoustic blues CD "Unplugged" is one of my favorites. It's just great. He also recorded a CD with B.B. King called "Riding With the King" which I highly recommend. Playing the blues is very dependent on "feel" so why not listen and learn from than the best?

Developing finger coordination, strength and "feel" through using a typical blues base line for guitar.

Play the base line slowly at first. Concentrate on developing a smooth rhythmic feel. Be sure to get a clean sound from each note. Practice playing the base line along with the 12-bar blues rhythm in lesson 9.