Best online resources for learning the blues?

I'm just getting started so I appreciate any and all suggestions. Thank you in advance.

[airborne1]

There are many choices.

Just a few, Justin Guitar which is free, Trufire, Guitar tricks, David Hamburger and others that of course require payment.

Other forum members will certainly have even more choices.

Enjoy your journey!

[JonPR]

If it's acoustic blues you want, the master is probably Stefan Grossman (who learned in person from Rev Gary Davis among others).

Naturally, he has his own website with plenty of material you can buy - https://www.guitarvideos.com/ - but there are also a good few youtube demos, such as:


He mentions Ernest Hawkins' lessons on Lightnin Hopkins:


BUT ... as they are both careful to say, the best thing of all is to listen and watch the originals. We are incredibly lucky today to have YouTube, with countless film clips of the old masters preserved. Remember, the way they all learned was by copying their own heroes - in person or on record - and copying each other. Now, thanks to youtube, we can maintain that tradition! Forget books, notation or tab. Forget websites even. Watch, listen and copy.

As well as Lightnin' Hopkins, you can find film of Rev Gary Davis, Skip James, Big Bill Broonzy, Fred McDowell, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Sam Chatmon, Doc Watson, Merle Travis .... It's a real embarrassment of riches: right in your PC or laptop, for free!

And then you have you friendly guys like Grossman or Hawkins (and many others) to take you through any details you can't quite make out in the originals. And you still don't have to pay any money...

When I think back to how I learned to play the blues in the 60s/70s (by ear from records, no film), today is like having died and gone to heaven.

[davidbeinct]

Assuming you meant learning the blues and not learning how to play the blues I’m going to say any dating website is a good start.

[M19]

https://www.twitch.tv/tobywalker

[reeve21]

Tom Feldmann will show you note for note how the masters did it.

[Andyrondack]

Pick a site with a heavy emphasis on learning to improvise .Playing the old masters note for note is not playing blues if you can't improvise blues your own way.
Active melody is good if you flatpick.

[TBman]

Take a look at Homespun lessons too.

Originally Posted by davidbeinct

Assuming you meant learning the blues and not learning how to play the blues I’m going to say any dating website is a good start.

ROTFL!!! You're hysterical.

But actually I did mean learning to PLAY the blues. So thanks for clarifying.

Originally Posted by JonPR

If it's acoustic blues you want, the master is probably Stefan Grossman (who learned in person from Rev Gary Davis among others).

Naturally, he has his own website with plenty of material you can buy - https://www.guitarvideos.com/ - but there are also a good few youtube demos, such as:


He mentions Ernest Hawkins' lessons on Lightnin Hopkins:


BUT ... as they are both careful to say, the best thing of all is to listen and watch the originals. We are incredibly lucky today to have YouTube, with countless film clips of the old masters preserved. Remember, the way they all learned was by copying their own heroes - in person or on record - and copying each other. Now, thanks to youtube, we can maintain that tradition! Forget books, notation or tab. Forget websites even. Watch, listen and copy.

As well as Lightnin' Hopkins, you can find film of Rev Gary Davis, Skip James, Big Bill Broonzy, Fred McDowell, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Sam Chatmon, Doc Watson, Merle Travis .... It's a real embarrassment of riches: right in your PC or laptop, for free!

And then you have you friendly guys like Grossman or Hawkins (and many others) to take you through any details you can't quite make out in the originals. And you still don't have to pay any money...

When I think back to how I learned to play the blues in the 60s/70s (by ear from records, no film), today is like having died and gone to heaven.

Agree! Agree! and Agree some more!

I'm not sure which is better, clip on tuners or YouTube. It's a toss up. I remember trying to learn how to tune a guitar when I was younger either with a tuning fork, by memory/ear or to another guitar and it was really hard. I never managed it.

Trying to listen to an album and figure out what they were playing was also so difficult. Being able to watch as someone plays is extremely helpful for learning how/when to change chords, or just trying to match the tab/chord sheet to what the person is doing.

We are very lucky indeed.

Thank you all for all the good suggestions. I also found this as a starter, just to get acquainted with some of the basics:

https://guitartopreview.com/easy-blues-guitar-songs/

Not all the tutorials are that great, but the little demo of Got My Mojo Workin' is good.

I found a nice tutorial for Smokestack Lightnen' and an incredible performance by Otis Rush of I Can't Quit You Baby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2tEP3I3DM

And here I thought that was a Led Zeppelin song!

With that Otis Rush performance and a chord sheet, I might actually be able to figure it out. He's a lefty BTW.

[Bushleague]

Dunno about the online thing.. I think you're supposed to practice in a graveyard at midnight.

[ceciltguitar]

Griff Hamlin has a great almost daily newsletter link to free video and sheet music / tab lessons, and of course he sells dvds etc too.

Here’s the link from today’s email:

https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/how...s&utm_term=all

[jontewright]

Have a look on Toby Walkers website. His 'Blues Foundation' set of lessons is a good place to start....then there's a lot more to go at beyond that. He's a fantastic player and a good teacher imo.
He's also a member on here although I don't think he's posted in a while.
He always responds pretty quickly to any questions you might have by email.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by janinep7

Thank you all for all the good suggestions. I also found this as a starter, just to get acquainted with some of the basics:

https://guitartopreview.com/easy-blues-guitar-songs/

Not all the tutorials are that great, but the little demo of Got My Mojo Workin' is good.

I found a nice tutorial for Smokestack Lightnen' and an incredible performance by Otis Rush of I Can't Quit You Baby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2tEP3I3DM

And here I thought that was a Led Zeppelin song!

With that Otis Rush performance and a chord sheet, I might actually be able to figure it out. He's a lefty BTW.

Poor choice of learning material, that sort of site does not even try to cover the basics.
Beginners need to learn the structure of blues, the kind of chords scales and progressions that build the matrix, then spend a goodly amount of time like a year or so just jamming along with recordings.
What you need to do is develop an ear for the chord changes, it doesn't matter how slick and fancy the solo part might sound it still relates to a simple progression of basic chords which you must learn to recognise, you learn this just by playing along with some chords and listening to what harmonises and what doesn't and relate that to the small number of different chord progressions that typically define blues. There's no shortcut I know of to developing your ear you just have to play along and listen.
Then come back to sites like that if you want to learn the details of how someone else goes about playing their blues.