Learn Blues Guitar Shuffle Rhythm – The Backbone of Blues Music

If you’re passionate about the blues, you may have heard Led Zeppelin’s “You Shook Me” or the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin” a few times. These classics give you an idea of ​​how the blue shuffle rhythm can take music to another level.

Or you may have felt Jimmy Reed or Chuck Berry create the magic with their random beat over and over again, not to mention Robert Johnson, whose many songs have an unmistakable random style. If you’ve always dreamed of playing blues guitar like these masters, here’s good news for you: With the availability of guitar lesson DVDs, you can now easily follow the basic steps to learn blues guitar shuffle. And this will definitely be one of the most crucial parts of your Blues learning process.

If you dream of playing Blues like a pro one day, you should find your lessons in deep understanding of Shuffle rhythm. Characterized by a long and short rhythmic pattern, the Shuffle rhythm is considered the backbone of Blues music.

It is not known how and where the rhythm got its name, but in blues guitar lessons, shuffle refers to a type of rhythm that consists of dividing a beat into 2 segments, the first longer and the second shorter. . The first is heavy, the second is light. The rhythm is usually played as a chord fragment on two bass strings. Based on an eighth note triplet rhythm, a shuffle is created by playing the first and third notes in a series of triplets. This adds a swingy feel to the entire rhythm pattern.

It takes a lot of practice to play this rhythm on your blues guitar, but once you get the hang of it, this typical blues rhythm is fun to play.

You can play a very basic blues shuffle by placing your first finger on the second fret of the fourth string so that you can strum the open fifth string and strum the fourth string on the second fret simultaneously. You have to strum these two strings twice. Next, you should strum the fourth fret of the fourth string twice with the third finger of the left hand and the fifth string open. You have to practice and try to keep your first finger in place while using your third finger to play the highest note. For each different string group, you should keep your left hand finger in the same position.

Students often start with blues scales and solos but overlook the importance of learning random rhythm, which is believed to be the backbone of blues music. If you aspire to become a soloist, you should pay close attention to the rhythm concepts of the blues Guitar shuffle, along with the fundamentals of chord progression.