Simple Acoustic Blues #5 – Walking Bass

This is another 12 bar/ 1 – 4 – 5 basic blues solo acoustic guitar piece. This time the bass moves through the chord changes while the chording is sparse and basic. The bass outlines the chords using scale and chromatic notes to connect the chord changes. The basic chords and chord fragments are only played on the second half of beat one. There is nothing new or innovative here – just basic concepts and moves that are tried and true.

This might be too simple for some and challenging to others. This is designed for the guitarist with basic skills. Click on the link below for the PDF chart and take a look at the video to hear how it sounds.

Acoustic Blues #5

Bridge Over Troubled Water Intro

I did a fingerstyle guitar arrangement of the piano intro to “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. The original is in Eb. I used a dropped D tuning (low E tuned a whole step down) and arranged it in D. If you want to do the record key just put a capo on the first fret and play everything up one fret.

This is basically a just a chord melody. Depending on how long you’ve been playing, some of the chord shapes along with melody notes may or may not be challenging to you. Squeezing piano parts out of the guitar is a great way to expand your musical thinking and fretboard vocabulary. As always, take your time and follow notion/tab closely. Click below for downloadable PDF. Scroll down for video.

Bridge Over Troubled Water Intro

Simple Acoustic Blues #4 Bass and Melody – 2 against 1

In this 12 bar blues there is an eighth note lead/melody line against a steady quarter note bass line. It also has a traditional blues intro/turnaround and some walking bass lines. As always, play slow at first until you are comfortable with the individual bass and melody line. Then you can gradually pick up speed. PDF link and video below.

Blues #4 PDF