Blues Bass Lines For Guitar Beginners

It's all about that bass!

In this Blues Guitar Studies lesson, we'll learn some cool bass lines on the guitar. Exploring bass guitar licks is an awesome thing to master for progressing guitar beginners. And - it'll improve your jamming skills too. :)

This is a technique that will level up your improvisation skills. It doesn't matter if you're playing with others or on your own - playing bass notes is fun and creative!

Explore the riffs in the original arrangement, and then you can find ways to improvise with them and make them your own! We'll explore different ways to change that riff up to add your style to it! You'll learn some tricks for your 12 bar Blues progression and Slow Change Bars.

We also learn the most mysterious chord of all time ...

🚨 As always, I encourage you to write your own variation inspired by my take. Download the PDF or Guitar Pro file in the resource section. It's free - all you have to do is log into your account to access it.

Blues Base Lines Variations

Let's go through a couple of variations of the blues bass line riff pattern. The first one is relatively simple. Instead of going to the root note at the top, you'll go to the flat seven. This is still a two-bar riff, but it's a variation that I put as the second time through in our set arrangement.

The idea of these arrangements is to give you ideas! I encourage you to go off and explorer on your own! There are slight variations that can add a nice little twist in the standard shuffle.

To start moving out of the standard shuffle, experiment and move your bass line here and there. Move it to the close positions with no open strings. Add a little slide in there, palm mute, different dynamics. Embellish your guitar sound with what feels natural to you!

🔑 Remember - if it sounds good, it is good. The goal here is to experiment and come up with your own style.

How To Create A Riff With Blues Bass Lines

I want you to try out and experiment with the riff. There are loads of different approaches to doing this!

I'm doing it in a specific kind of shuffle, a very common base for blues guitar. But if you're more into rock and roll, you can explore it in more of a metal context. A lot of the riffs base themselves on the same groups of notes. The difference is the feeling that is being evoked from your guitar playing.

So experiment with this idea of taking a little riff and moving it around the 12 bar blues with other music genres you love!

Try to have a muck around and see if you can come up with something new! Ideally, you'll make up your own riff, and this improvisation will happen instinctively with practice.

💡 The idea here to give you a foundation to springboard your own creativity. Once you've learned the set and feel confident with it, have fun and explore!

What Is A Blues Turnaround?

Turnarounds turn the music back around to start again, but they have a dual purpose. They're an essential part of blues guitar. They are usually the last two bars of a 12 bar blue sequence. You have a turnaround either to start the riff again or to finish the song!