You don’t learn how to play the blues from a book — there’s no book smart with the blues. You have to be street smart to play the blues and there’s only two ways to do that — play out 250+ night a year for 10 years, or study with someone who’s been there, done that, and can teach as well as they can play. We can’t help you with the gigs, but we can put you in very capable hands for the latter — Kelly Richey.
Kelly’s definitely earned her tee shirt; 800,000 touring miles and 3,500 gigs over the past 28 years playing with or opening for the likes of Lonnie Mack, Albert King, Joe Cocker, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, Walter Trout, Little Feat, Foghat, REO Speedwagon, George Thorogood, Robben Ford, Warren Zevon, and even James Brown. Street smart indeed.
We’ve been impressed with Kelly’s playing for a long, long time but her teaching methods blow us away. Kelly is a dedicated, passionate and driven educator with miles and miles of educational accomplishments, most notably her Blues Grit curriculum, which has guided thousands of eager students far along the path to becoming street smart blues players.
You’ll get right down to business from the very start with a series of lessons covering fretboard navigation approaches, essential scales and chord vocabulary and all of the requisite blues right and left-hand techniques playing rhythm and lead guitar.
In the first two sections of the course, Kelly covers 5th & 6th String Scales & Chords, Finger Exercises, Flat Tire & Left Hand Muting, Advanced Rhythm & Muting, Hybrid Picking Punctuation, Double-Stops, Rakes & Slides, Bends & Vibrato, Hammer Ons & Pull Offs, Pinch Harmonics, Slap Harmonics, Strumming Patterns, Guitar Rig Setup and Practice Routines.
In the third section of the course Kelly guides you through 10 real-world blues Performance Studies in a variety of keys, tempos and feels: Hey Joe Blues, My Baby's Gone Crazy, Mean Old World, Crossroads Blues, I Went Down Easy, Fast Drivin' Mama, Tears Like Rain, Red House, Sister’s Gotta Problem and The Longest Road.
Kelly demonstrates all of the Performance Studies over rhythm tracks and then breaks them down measure-by-measure, technique-by-technique. You’ll first learn the parts as performed by playing along with Kelly while referencing the accompanying tab and notation.
All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Kelly generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.
Take Kelly and Blues Grit to your practice room tonight and you’ll be talkin’ the talk, and walkin’ the walk in no time!
What you'll learn
Play octaves across the fretboard with proper muting
Execute dynamic rhythm playing that engages listeners emotionally
Apply flat tire rhythm pattern with triplet variations
Integrate performance dynamics and physical expression
Understand and play blues progressions without five chord turnarounds
I’m Kelly Richey and I’d like to personally welcome you to my guitar instructional series called Blues Grit. This course is broken down into three sections: In Section One we will cover basic fundamentals used throughout this course. Whether you are an intermediate or advanced student, please take time to review this first section as it’s important that I explain how I view the neck of the guitar and what words I use to describe things so that I can communicate the information in this series in a clear and effective manner. We will also cover the names of the notes up and down the 5th and 6th strings, and I’ll show you a simple system I use to insure that you know all the bar chords and pentatonic scales. In section One I will teach you three key finger exercises and an isometric hand exercise to build strength and dexterity. We will also discuss how to establish a highly effective daily practice routine.
In Section Two we will cover my 12 techniques and concepts for playing rhythm and lead guitar. I’ll teach you powerful right hand strum and rhythm techniques, a variety of muting techniques, bends, vibrato, double stops, rakes, slides, hammer ons and pull offs, slap harmonics and how to incorporate the figure eight strumming technique.
2SECTION 1: Fundamentals
Building A Strong Foundation with Barchords, Pentatonic Scales and Finger Exercises.
35th & 6th String Scales & Chords
The Blues Grit Bar Chord & Pentatonic Scale System: Bar Chords & Substitution Chords - Minor & Major Pentatonic Scales This is an overview of how I view bar chords on the neck of the guitar and how I break down the minor pentatonic scale patterns for students to reference throughout the course instruction series.
4Finger Exercises
Finger Exercises 1, 2, 3 Overview and Daily Practice Routine: Basics on how to play these finger exercises properly, their importance, and advice for developing a powerful and efficent Daily Practice Routine. As a bonus to this section, I also include a simple yet highly effective left hand isometric hand exercise for additional strength training.
5SECTION 2: Essential Techniques & Concepts
This is an overview of the 12 guitar techniques and concepts used in Segments 5 - 11 in this series.
6Flat Tire & Left Hand Muting
How to develop what's often refered to as the "Texas Sound" or what I call the "Flat Tire" rhythm approach. You will learn how to develop a right hand strumming technique combined with a left hand muting technique to enhance your lead and rhythm guitar playing.
7Advanced Rhythm & Muting
How to use the right hand strumming technique in combination with the left hand muting technique you learned in “Concept 1” to further enhance your lead & rhythm guitar playing.
Really well done lessons here. Some “hacks” for pentatonic flow that seemed mysterious before but clear with this course. What I liked the best is the drills and upfront honesty that you need to practice!
A
arpeggio5
Verified buyer
04/21/25
Very good explaining how she sees the fret board and caged platform.
B
bward75
Verified buyer
01/31/25
Great course!!
I've learned a lot of cool ideas in this course that I've applied quickly. Kelly is a great teacher!
G
Greenwave
Verified buyer
08/17/24
Great insights for blues lovers
Got some excellent insights - and of course its blues!
M
MyTrufire44
Verified buyer
12/20/23
C'est grâce à mon abonnement que j'ai pu, dans un premier temps, tester ce cours. Je ne connaissais pas cette guitariste mais le moins que l'on puisse dire c'est qu'il y a du niveau ! Kelly Richey est formidable. J'ai acheté ce cours et je sais que ça va être un travail de longue haleine pour approcher son niveau de jeu. Mais avec ses conseils je vais gagner du temps. Merci.
