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2 Blues Guitar For Dummies
You should find your own way to absorb the music in this book so you can
play it back as your own. Do that through a combination of the elements
below:
Chord diagrams: You form the left-hand chords you need by looking at
the diagrams and matching your fingers to the symbols on the guitar’s
neck.
Guitar tablature: Tablature is a type of notation that tells you to finger
certain frets on specific strings. No “notes” are involved, just locations
on which frets and strings to play. The tab staff appears just below the
standard music notation staff. If you can already read music — even just
a little — you can always see what note you’re fingering by looking at
the staff immediately above the tab.
The CD: Playing by ear is important because after you get a good idea of
where to place your fingers, you want to let your ears take over. Listening
to the CD is important because it shows you how the music sounds,
so you can figure out the rhythm of the song and how long to hold notes
by listening, not reading. The CD also has some cool features:
• Provides accompaniment, so you can hear how the examples
sound in a band setting — with drums, bass, and rhythm guitar.
• Enables you to always find the track that corresponds to the
printed music example in the chapters
• Gives you a count-off so that you can play along in time
The tab staff and music staff: To those of you who do like to read music
(you two know who you are), this book delivers in that department, too.
The music for many exercises and songs appears in standard music
notation, just above the tab staff. You get the best of both worlds: tab
showing you where to put your fingers and the corresponding music
notation to satisfy all those schooled musicians out there.
Grab a copy of Blues For Dummies (no, I didn’t write it; it was written by
Lonnie Brooks, Cub Koda, and Wayne Baker Brooks) for general blues info.
Blues Guitar For Dummies is about playing blues guitar, and I devote more
pages to playing than I do historical stuff.
Conventions Used in This Book
This book has a number of conventions that I use to make things consistent
and easy to understand. Here’s a list of those conventions:
TEAM LinG