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I have had the amazing pleasure of taking guitar lessons on finger style guitar blues and ragtime, lap style and Slide Guitar lessons from one of the best teachers out there and her name is Mary Flower. I have also had the pleasure of producing three DVD’s for her in their different styles of guitar mastery.

I first met Mary Flower at the guitar seminars work shop that was run by two other astounding guitar player Woody Mann, and Bob Brozman and I also want to mention Trevor Lawrence who pretty much ran the back end of the workshop and is also a great player.

The three DVD’s I produced for Mary teach three different styles of blues guitar. The first one in on playing blues guitar in the Key of E. The second DVD is playing Ragtime Style of Blues guitar. The third DVD is playing guitar in Dropped D Tuning.

Many blues guitarists feel that the key at E is both the most accessible and expressive key for deep blues sounds. Blues in E is a sound as old as the blues themselves. In this video, Mary shows you how to reach deep into the blues bag by teaching the licks and tricks that have kept this genre interesting and fun.

Going beyond mere role demonstration, she also explores the 12-bar blues structure and offers tips on creating your own arrangements. Starting with the Delta style where the thumb pounds out ifs steady, compelling bass, Mary shows you how to add single notes, up-the-neck bends, moveable chords, and powerful boogie-woogie patterns. Then she walks you through a plethora of blues turnarounds, the figures that add color and spice o your arrangements when you use them as fills between vocal lines.

Mary mixes classic and contemporary songs to add variety to her teaching and help you diversify your own repertoire. In this video, she uses Leroy Carr’s “;Midnight Hour Blues”; and Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key to the Highway” (made famous by Eric Clapton) as well as her own tunes to show you how blues techniques and structures really work, and how to make them work for you.

True to Mary’s style of teaching, songs and techniques are presented in progressive order of difficulty. This video is geared to the intermediate to advanced player as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Mary Flower has carried on the tradition of roots music for over three decades, specializing in the blues. A longtime favorite in Denver, Colorado, she took to the road after her children were grown and quickly achieved national prominence

Mary now lives in the Portland Oregon area where she still teaches, performs locally and travels around the world playing the blues.

Today she is best known for her many CDs, concert and festival appearances, and as a prizewinning contestant in the National Finger picking Guitar Championship at the Walnut Valley Festival.

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When you first start or begin to learn how to play the blues it is a very good idea that your first know what type of blues you want to learn to master. There are several types of blues that have been developed in this country. Many regions around the United States have their own style of blues guitar playing. There is Chicago Style of Blues, there is Texas Style of Blues, The Delta Style, also New Orleans Style of Blues Guitar, and the Piedmont Style of Blues that comes for the mid east coast up to Delaware style.

A very first and most important thing in my opinion is knowing what a progression is. The blues is comprised of a kind of pattern or order of notes that are played. This is the blues progression patterns. The blues progression is a one, four, five progression (1-4-5-). I’ll try to describe what this means so pay close attention. There are seven major notes in playing music. These notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Now here is where it gets kind of tricky. If some one says they are going to play the blues in the key of A, this simply means that the A is the (One Chord) or the very first chord in the song. The next chord to be played in the song would be the ( Four Chord) or the second chord that would be played. And then the next chord is the (Five Chord) this is the 1 4 5 progression.

Looking at the 7 major chords A, B, C, D, E, F, G, start counting from the left you will notice the first chord is the A chord the fourth chord is the D chord and the fifth chord is the E chord. Now lets look at a song in the key of E. Can you figure out what the progression is?

Starting with the E Chord as the first chord in the song it would be the one chord. Now counting from the E Chord and using it as the number one chord you count F chord as the 2nd chord in the major scale, then the G chord would be the 3rd chord in the major scale then the next chord in the song would be the A chord or the four chord in the song. Now to complete the 145 progression the 5 chord would be the B chord. So the 145 progression in the key of E would use these 3 chords. They are the E, A, B chords.

Start practicing using these chord progressions, keep playing them over and over and try to develop a smooth strum or plucking when you practice them. Its far better to practice chord over and over again with out pausing from on chord to the next. I guess what I am trying to say is play them until they become fluid with out stopping to find the next chord. After a while you will start to here the music and you can move on to new and better things.

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One of the first chords a new guitar player will have difficulty with is the Fm7 or F major 7th. To play this chord your fingers will get a work out but it is a chord you must learn so I would not put it off. Start off with this chord because it will help your guitar playing and you will learn and progress much faster if your hands are in playing shape.

There is definitely some stretching going on when you play this cord. This is an important lesson particularly for beginners because you will soon see that the stretching that your fingers will go through will help you with all of the other difficult chords you will learn.

I should first start off by explaining how the strings are numbered. As you hold your guitar the smallest string is the first string. Then each string is numbered 2nd, third, fourth, the fifth and then the sixth string is the top string or the thickest and bass string.

The Fm7th chord starts off with your third finger on the fourth string just above the third fret. If you don’t know what frets are, they are the little metal bars that go across the neck of your guitar. Now place your second finger on the third string just above the second fret. Now place your first finger on the second string over the first fret.

When you strum the strings start with the fourth string and strum all the way through the first string. You want the first string to ring out and when many people start to play this chord there fingers are laying over the first string which dampens or mutes the first string so it won’t ring out. This is common but with a few days of practice your sound will be much fuller and you can play the chords with more fluidity.

Now work on this chord and start having a little fun with it. Begin moving all your fingers up the neck one fret at a time. Now when I say up the neck it means that your are moving your fingers towards the sound hole of the guitar. It is called up because the notes that you are playing are higher in pitch. When I say down the neck you move your finger towards the tuning keys. If you’re a real beginner they are the little knobs that the strings are attached to at the head stock. The head stock is the where they are found. The little white bar across the top of the neck and above the frets with the notches in is called the nut.

Now start moving and strumming the guitar one fret at a time. You will begin to notice that it starts to get easier to play the chord because the frets are getting closer together.
Now as you start to get past the eighth fret you may start having problems holding the chord positions because the frets are getting to close to each other. Don’t worry with some practice it will get much easier as your fingers get used to the stretching that is going on. Yep it is a work out trying this chord but it is a must chord to know how to play correctly.

Keep practicing this chord up and down the neck. You will begin to see that as you move from one chord to the next your fingers will have to stretch wider as you go down the neck and closer as you go up the neck. Try not to get hung up or be discouraged if it doesn’t sound that good for now. This is a stretching exercise and as your fingers learn and get stretched your sound will improve.

Now when pressing down on the strings you really don’t have to push that hard. Most beginners start pushing much too hard. All you really need to do is have the string your pushing on have solid contact with the fret. You don’t need to have your finger placed directly over the fret but just before it.

You will also start to notice that the tips of your finger will begin to get a little sore at first. After a week or so you will begin to develop calluses on your finger tips. This will become a source of conversation and pride with new guitarist. Don’t worry if your fingers are too sore to practice just wait a day or two and start to practice again. It may take several weeks before you can put in more than a few minutes of practice at a time. The important thing is not to give up. Learning to play guitar will bring you a life time of free pleasure.