If you’ve spent any time on my site, then chances are you’ve either read my Jamplay guitar lessons review, or at the very least have an idea of what their service offers.

In a nut shell Jamplay has hundreds of hours of online guitar lesson videos you can learn from, organized into easy to follow lessons plans for all skill levels. So if you’re a beginner they’ve got you covered with introductory acoustic and electric lessons, but at the same time if you’re an intermediate player they’ve got you covered with blues, rock and even jazz or metal lessons. What ever you’re up for they’ve got something for you.

My reason for posting today is because I wanted to let you know about the Jamplay coupons that are available. If you follow that link you’ll find two different coupons you can apply to save money on your membership cost to Jamplay.

The first coupon is meant to be applied to your month-to-month membership fee. If you’re looking to join only for a month or two then you can use this coupon code to save 25% off your first months fees.

Now if you’re thinking of joining and sticking around for a while definitely consider signing up for more then just one month and using their 10% off coupon code.

The benefit here is that Jamplay already discounts the month fee when you join for 3 or 12 months. Using the additional 10% off coupon makes it even cheaper for you, so it’s kind of a no brainer.

Check out the Jamplay coupon codes available now.

I know this site is focussed on learning to play blues on the guitar but I wanted to touch on the bass guitar today. Beginners don’t recognize how important the bass guitar is at tying together the drums and guitar in a blues song unless you take the bass away and just have drums and guitar.

You see if you’re playing chords on the guitar and the drums are playing a straight beat then there’s a disconnect there. The guitar isn’t really following closely the beat from the drums and the drums of course don’t play chords or notes just beats.

Bring in the bas guitar and you’ll see that the groove of a tune can often be found in the drum and bass mix. The bass will follow along with the chord changes on a guitar by playing the root notes and also follows the beat from the bass drum on the drums. This fills a gap that isn’t covered by the guitar in most blues tunes.

The bass also usually plays runs in blues music. These runs follow the I IV V 12 bar blues progression the same as the guitar and makes it easy for a blues guitarist to play some lead over top of the bass and drum track on its own without needing another rhythm instrument such as the piano or another guitar.

If you have some interest in learning the blues on the bass there are a lot of online resources to get you started. I’ve seen some awesome DVD bass guitar lessons for beginner and intermediate players. Also I’ve found that there are some basic blues bass lessons on sites like YouTube which you can get started on for free.

I came across this nice little blues lick online today. I’ve been practicing and working through the Learn & Master Blues guitar lessons course lately so I’ve been paying close attention to what Steve Krenz, the course author and instructor has been doing. This video I found today is golden for beginner blues players because it’s a nice easy lick to get under your fingers with a few minutes of practicing, but it sounds so sweet. You’ll love playing it while you’re jamming.

So to get started check out the video below. You’ll want to watch it all the way through first as Steve gives you an explanation of what it is he’s doing on the guitar neck. Now he doesn’t explain in detail that little walk he does at the beginning of the lick but it’s simply open string, 3rd fret and open string. So in A he’s playing open E string, 3rd fret (G) on the E string and then open A string. Same pattern for the lick in the key of D. Open A string, 3rd fret A string (C) and then open D string.

After you watch this once through go grab your guitar and give it a try.

What guitar course you choose to use when learning guitar has a lot to do with how comfortable you are with technology. I know music and technology are not one in the same, but as more and more self learning goes online you need to have a solid handle on how to use your Internet browser and the web in general to take some like guitar lessons.

If you’re a more mature beginner and taking video lessons via your laptop doesn’t feel like you’re thing maybe consider DVD lessons instead.

Using DVD videos is a lot more familiar to everyone then having to login and find your way around a website that might feel a bit cumbersome.

Also I find that DVD video lessons are easier to refer to if you want to refresh a particular topic. This might be because I’ve owned several DVD guitar courses and recognize that paying for something once (rather then monthly) and then getting to keep it for good puts less pressure on your to learn things quickly.

So take it slow, choose the guitar course that feels right for you, and remember what might seem like a big price difference today, won’t seem like anything down the road when you’re playing your favorite tunes and/or jamming with friends.

I spend most of my time posting here about learning the blues on guitar, after all that is what most people think of when they think about learning the blues. How ever you can also play the blues on other instruments, especially the piano.

Learning the blues on the piano is similar to the guitar. You’ve got your 12 bar blues, blues scales etc. Of course you need to learn the basics of the piano before you start trying to apply any of the blues theory we’ve talked about here.

A piano lessons dvd is a good place to get the basic knowledge you’d need to transition your blues guitar skills to the piano.

Self study video courses are becoming the more popular alternative to private instruction for adults. Primarily because of the cost savings and lack of time restrictions on when you watch lessons and how quickly you learn.

Once you’ve learned the basic piano scales, how to make chords and left and right hand techniques you’ll be all set to transition into a little bit of blues piano.

If you’re an entirely new guitar player, as in just got a guitar, can’t strum a chord and most of the videos and lessons I have on my site are going way over your head, what should you do?

Well for starters, getting one of the blues guitar courses on this site probably is the wrong move yet. You’re going to want a bit of a primer on beginner guitar techniques before you start trying to learn the blues.

Two programs I review and discuss on the site (JamPlay and GuitarTricks) both offer beginner online videos which you may want to check out. They’re quality instruction and have something for everyone no matter what the skill level.

The course that I’ve been recommending for two years now to beginners is neither of those websites, instead it’s a DVD course from Legacy learning systems, the same company that makes the blues guitar dvd course I recommend on this site.

You can learn more about the beginner course here, learn and master guitar review, but I’ll give you a quick primer on it now.

It’s a 25 disc course aimed at taking complete beginners to a place where they’re able to play a variety of styles and know their way around the guitar neck. For complete beginners, such as yourself, there’s over a years worth of lesson content on the DVDs which you can watch and practice as quickly or slowly as you want. There’s only a one time fee for the course and no on going monthly fees like online lessons or private instruction.

I love the sound of slide blues guitar, and the video I’ve got for you today is nothing short of AWESOME.

Like the past two videos I’ve posted for you today is another of Jack Pearson from the Legacy Days get together last year held for Learn & Master Guitar product owners.

This is only a short clip but he plays some nice sounding stuff quickly in the clip. Note how he mixes the slide in with playing the frets with his finger tips as well. A great blues guitarist in action.

You can watch a full interview on his gear, playing techniques and more as part of the full blues guitar dvd course from Legacy learning systems.

Found this video, another from the Legacy Days Get together for the Learn & Master Guitar products. In this video is a great blues guitar player Jack Pearson, he’s interviewed on the blues guitar dvd Learn and Master Blues Spotlight. Pay attention to the video, the audio is low but he shares a great custom tuning and some fantastic techniques for dampening (covering) the strings with his right hand. He is truly one of the great players!

I found a video from the Legacy Days get together that Learn & Master holds each year for their guitar students. The last session they had Jack Pearson, one of the guitarists interviewed for their blues guitar dvd course, Learn and Master Blues Spotlight. He makes it look so effortless in this video. His playing is smooth and creative. He is a perfect example of a “less is more” type of blues guitar player. Rather then jamming 100 notes a second down the listeners throat he takes his time and creates a beautiful melody with his note choosing.

The Legacy Days get together is something available to all owners of a Learn and Master Guitar product. It’s a great event if you are ever able to make it!

Rail Road Media Inc, a company popularized for their drum dvd lessons has just recently released a new blues guitar dvd called the Blues Guitar Blueprint.

The course is aimed at taking beginner and intermediate guitar players to a level where they can play not just blues scales but feel confident and comfortable breaking free from the same old scale patterns and making something sound unique and their own.

Here’s the promo video released for the course:

This course will likely do well with younger rock/blues guitarists looking to move more towards learning lead guitar techniques. I still think for more mature guitar players that are through and through blues fans they’ll enjoy the Learn & Master Blues Spotlight course a little more.