Acoustic Blues Guitar is geared towards students with pick-style electric and acoustic guitar backgrounds and offers a structured and comprehensive entrance into the world of fingerstyle and bottleneck acoustic blues guitar. The goal of the course is for students to develop a foundational, working repertoire in the acoustic blues style that includes early and contemporary material from the Mississippi Delta, Texas, Georgia/Carolinas, and more. You will learn to fingerpick melodies and solos over independent bass patterns, and perform in the acoustic bottleneck slide style in standard and open tunings. These techniques will provide a strong platform for pursuing folk, pop/rock, country, and other fingerpicking guitar styles. The course also provides an important perspective on the history of traditional blues, including its artists and the regions in which the music developed. You will gain an appreciation of the role traditional blues artists played in the development of all American music that followed and how the legacy of acoustic blues is manifested today.

The material will be presented with extensive tab/notation, audio, and video, with music broken down into digestible concepts for the acoustic blues novice and intermediate level guitarists to master. The initial focus of the course is to develop independence between the thumb and fingers of the picking hand. As the comfort level is established with single-note bass patterns, the course introduces alternate bass figures upon an ever-expanding repertoire. The course then explores the bottleneck style (slide over bass patterns) and alternate tunings, concluding with a study of current contemporary voices in the acoustic blues style.

Artists covered include Big Bill Broonzy, Tommy Johnson, Elizabeth Cotton, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Tampa Red, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, Corey Harris, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, and more.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Recognize the primary regions where blues developed, including the characteristics of music and representative artists in each region
• Fingerpick melodies and solos over independent bass patterns
• Perform in the acoustic bottleneck slide style in standard and open tunings
• Develop a varied repertoire of acoustic blues that includes historic as well as contemporary examples

Syllabus

Lesson 1 Developing an Automatic Bass

Lesson 2 B.B King and Eric Clapton’s “Key to the Highway”

Lesson 3 Developing an Alternating Bass

Lesson 4 Delta Blues, Part 1

Lesson 5 Blues Meets Country 

Lesson 6 Acoustic Blues Soloing

Lesson 7 Texas Blues

Lesson 8 Delta Blues, Part 2

Lesson 9 Bottleneck Blues, Part 1 (Standard and Open G Tuning)

Lesson 10 Bottleneck Blues, Part 2 (Open D Tuning)

Lesson 11 Vintage Acoustic Blues Classics

Lesson 12 Modern Acoustic Blues Classics

Requirements

Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements 

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General Course Requirements

Instructors

Dan Bowden

Author & Instructor

Dan Bowden is an unusually versatile guitarist and teacher, specializing in a wide range of styles including rock, jazz, blues and R’n’B. With over a dozen instructional books for the guitar to his credit, Dan has reached guitar students worldwide. His best-selling titles include: Wes Montgomery: The Early Years, Mel Bays Complete Accompaniment Method For Guitar, and Electric Blues Guitar Workout. Along with doing freelance performing in the Boston area, Dan plays and records with the blues, roots and originals group: Stingy Brimm. He has taught guitar at Berklee since 1989, and is himself a Berklee graduate. Dan’s first guitar effect pedal was an original 1960’s Maestro Fuzz-Tone. He has continuously used effects since that time.

What’s Next?

When taken for credit, Acoustic Blues Guitar can be applied towards these associated programs:

Associated Certificate Programs

• General Music Studies Professional Certificate
• Blues Guitar Professional Certificate
• General Music Studies Advanced Professional Certificate

Associated Degree Major

• Bachelor’s Degree in Guitar