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Blues Jam Survivor

Everything You Need to Know to Survive a Blues Jam

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Blues Jam Survivor
Damon Fowler

Damon Fowler

Educator

blues, blues-rock

Genres

About this course

The best way for a guitarist to improve their soloing and rhythm chops is to play with as many other musicians as possible. Fortunately, for blues players, that’s easy enough to do simply by jumping on stage at the local blues jam or getting together with your buds to jam on some tunes.

Damon Fowler’s Blues Jam Survivor is an essential collection of soloing approaches, comping techniques, blues jam lingo, and etiquette tips that you must know to not only “survive” the blues jam, but to also keep getting invited back on stage.

” I’ve clocked thousands of hours playing blues jams over the years. In this course, I’ll pass on soloing and comping approaches, blues jam lingo, and even a few etiquette tips that I’ve picked up from my own experiences. My goal is to increase your confidence, equip you with some essential tools, and inspire you to put your name on the list and get up on the stage! “

Damon will demonstrate what to do at a big blues jam when you have multiple guitarists on the stage, especially the importance of laying down a solid rhythm part and staying out of the way of the other instruments.

You’ll learn Damon’s “Big City Chords” and what to do with progressions that go beyond the standard 1 4 5 changes. Damon will show you some of his favorite right-hand approaches including hybrid picking, flat-picking, and when to use a fingers-only approach. Getting your vibrato dialed in is critical to sounding like you, so you’ll also explore a few effective approaches.

”We’ll talk about other left-hand tricks: slides, hammer-ons, bends, and what to do when you’re accompanying a singer on the jam to give the singer the spotlight. And of course, we’ll also talk about some of the lingo you may hear at the jam, and some useful tips on how to carry yourself both respectfully and confidently.”

Damon will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.

Grab your guitar and let’s get on the jam stage with Damon Fowler!

What you'll learn

  • Perform pull-offs with proper technique (pulling down rather than lifting up)
  • Master switching between pick and fingers mid-performance
  • Apply multiple left-hand techniques within a 12-bar blues progression
  • Develop percussive picking technique for funk and blues
  • Develop personal style using these foundational techniques
Release date: 06/01/2020 • 2h 45m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateguitarelectric guitarrhythmsoloing
Start Course
Sample lessons
Playing 2nd Rhythm in a Jam
Playing 2nd Rhythm in a Jam
Demonstration
Uptown Downtown: 2
Uptown Downtown: 2
Overview
Uptown Downtown: 2
Uptown Downtown: 2
Performance
Uptown Downtown: 2
Uptown Downtown: 2
Breakdown

What's included

43 lessons • 10 charts • 10 Jam Tracks

Blues Jam Survivor
Hi, I'm Damon Fowler. Welcome to Blues Jam Survivor!

The best way for a guitarist to improve their soloing and rhythm chops is to play with as many other musicians as possible. Fortunately, for blues players, that's easy enough to do simply by jumping on stage at the local blues jam or getting together with your buds to jam on some tunes.

I've clocked thousands of hours playing blues jams over the years. In this course, I'll pass on soloing and comping approaches, blues jam lingo, and even a few etiquette tips that I've picked up from my own experiences. My goal is to increase your confidence, equip you with some essential tools, and inspire you to put your name on the list and get up on the stage!

For example, we'll talk about drawing from your influences, a few of my biggest influences, and some of the ways those players impacted my blues soloing.

We'll talk about the importance of laying down a solid rhythm part and staying out of the way of the other instruments in the jam, cover some of my favorite right-hand approaches, hybrid picking, flat-picking, and when to use a fingers-only approach, what to do when you're accompanying a singer on the jam, and of course, we'll also talk about some of the lingo you may hear at the jam, and some useful tips on how to carry yourself both respectfully and confidently.

I'll demonstrate and break down each of the approaches over backing tracks across a variety of blues feels, keys and tempos. Everything is transcribed and you'll be able to sync the tab and notation to the video using TrueFire's learning tools. All of the backing tracks are included, and you can also loop or slow down the videos so you can work with the lessons at your own pace.

Ready to get started? Grab your guitar, and let's go.
Digging in to Your Influences
This lesson has to do with influences, and the importance of developing a personal style. Some of my influences include B.B.King, Albert Collins, Jimmie Vaughan and Albert King. Here we'll also get into the difference between using your fingers vs. using a pick, and how that can develop your personal touch.
Influenced Shuffle
Here's a performance drawing from a few of my influences. We're starting out with an Albert King lick in the key of A. Vibrato is really important in this scenario! In the Albert Collins style, you'll notice a box...Collins had a peculiar style, but it's very cool! It's tough to really nail down Collins' style, and I believe he played in an alternate tuning. Listen and hear the contrast with someone like BB King, who is more vocal sounding.
Influenced Shuffle
Here's a performance drawing from a few of my influences. We're starting out with an Albert King lick in the key of A. Vibrato is really important in this scenario! In the Albert Collins style, you'll notice a box...Collins had a peculiar style, but it's very cool! It's tough to really nail down Collins' style, and I believe he played in an alternate tuning. Listen and hear the contrast with someone like BB King, who is more vocal sounding.

Here I'll play through the performance study, and then we'll break it down in the next lesson.
Influenced Shuffle
Let's break it down. We're starting out with an Albert King lick in the key of A. Vibrato is really important in this scenario! In the Albert Collins style, you'll notice a box...Collins had a peculiar style, but it's very cool! It's tough to really nail down Collins' style, and I believe he played in an alternate tuning. Listen and hear the contrast with someone like BB King, who is more vocal sounding.
Laying Rhythmic Foundations
Let's talk about rhythm guitar. There are different approaches for different songs - it can be fast, busy, or simple - you got to use your ears to figure that out. Here we'll talk about listening to the other musicians on the stage, and how what they're doing decides what you're going to play. Stage VOLUME is a something we be very aware of, too: When playing in a band situation, let the bass player play the bass...find some small patterns to go with the bass lines, call and answer style rhythm, etc. You have to find a good part for you! Experiment a little.
Uptown Downtown: 1
Here's an example of what I would do over an "uptown downtown" shuffle in the key of A. The idea here is to play something that would weave well into what the rest of the band might play on a blues jam. It goes a little something like this.

+ 36 more lessons

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Reviews

7 results

Craig

12/05/21

One of the best blues courses on Truefire

I've become a bit of a hoarder and (mainly through sales and discounts) have accumulated over 200 Truefire courses. This is one of the best. I'm about halfway through and its an absolute gem. Covers most of the main blues "styles" very well. The content is delivered in a concise, friendly way without any fluff and with a focus on listening and feel. Definitely pitched at intermediate and intermediate plus blues players- not one I'd have appreciated or stuck with as a beginner. I hope Damon is recruited for more courses as he's a brilliant teacher.

jezzer

Verified buyer

06/23/20

Great licks

A very practical hands on course. Lots of great licks

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