Is the Blues a good place to start learning guitar?

[MarkRhodes]

Herb Ellis started as a blues player.

O, man, Herb's my guy. He kept some blues in all that he played. Here's his "Blues For Everyone."

(NB: the video is deliberately out of focus at the beginning, so, uh, "do not adjust your set.")

[Lionelsax]

I think the best way is the Rhythm Changes progression to learn jazz, it's just my opinion, a very famous guy used to say : "An opinion is like an AH (I can't say the word here, everyone can guess what I mean), everybody's got one !"

[inwalkedbud]

Blues sounds perfect. Get them to transcribe little things. After learning their little pentatonic scale even a fairly novice student can pick up loads of great BB King licks and things by ear. Also guys like that often use very subtle bends and vibratos and things like that to enormous effect - in fact a lot of the time the pool of notes is so small that almost the entire solo is very interesting and tasteful utilization of guitar techniques like bending and slurring and things. That means that a student can grab the pitches easily but won't be tricked into thinking they know the lick until they realllllly examine the articulations. Very interesting that jazz guys neglect woefully.

With that said ... I assumed we were talking about the Blues as a style of music for a beginner. If we're talking about teaching a player who already plays and wants to play jazz then I'll assume we're talking about blues as a form. Still a great place. You've got major ii-Vs, minor ii-Vs, non-functional dominant chords, a language particular to that form that is integral to any jazz vocabulary. Very good place start.

[inwalkedbud]

Also - for everyone who's worried about a beginner getting stuck in the blues and not progressing --

It's a valid art form. If they choose to excel then more power to them. It's not really your job to make them play jazz. Jazz isn't necessarily a higher art form. Obviously elements of both inform the other but neither is better per se. If you have a student with the patience to learn thoroughly and develop aural skills then - also - more power to them.

As a teacher it's YOUR job to make sure they get the right stuff from whatever you give them and that you don't let them get bogged down and complacent. I think there's LOOOAADS of wonderful material in the 40s - 60s electric blues thing. It might not make sense to a trumpet player to learn that way but every electric guitar player under the sun picked up a guitar because BB King and Charlie Christian did 75 years ago. Ignoring that is like a piano player ignoring Chopin or Scarlatti or Bach. No bueno.

[MarkRhodes]

I think the best way is the Rhythm Changes progression to learn jazz, it's just my opinion, a very famous guy used to say : "An opinion is like an AH (I can't say the word here, everyone can guess what I mean), everybody's got one !"

I think it's great to know the rhythm changes. Mickey Baker devotes a good chunk of his great book to them. I think, though, those changes overwhelm beginners. They certainly overwhelmed me....

I like the three books by Herb Ellis, and their intended order of use (-though any one could be picked up and used without having used the other two): Swing Blues, Rhythm Shapes (-rhythm changes) and All the Shapes You Are (-playing over standards). It's a great way to get up and running.