Blues as a genre of music has been influential in giving birth to many of the other genres we now love and enjoy listening to. You don’t often find guitarists who don’t mention blues as one of their early influencers. So, is learning the blues essential for mastering the guitar?

You Don’t Need the Blues

It is possible to learn to play the guitar without getting yourself deep into the world of blues. Guitar techniques come in many shapes and sizes these days, and you don’t need to get your head around all of them if you don’t want to.

If you are a guitar player and you know the kind of style you’d want to play, it doesn’t necessarily make you any better to learn about all the other styles. In fact, if you are just starting out all the different scales can just make it all a bit too complicated.

On the other hand, for some great guitarists, blues isn’t as challenging as some other genres might be. The legendary Swedish guitarist, Yngwie Malmsten told in his autobiography, he turned to Bach and Vivaldi when he got “frustrated with the simplicity of rock ’n’ roll and blues”. In order to find new depth and inspiration to your playing, you don’t need to look into the world of blues, as there are other genres to use as well in surprising ways.

You Should Go with the Blues

But the other side of the coin is the fact that blues is the father of guitar music. Those early great blues guitarists like Muddy Waters and B. B. King have influenced most of the guitar music you hear today.

Blues scales have influenced genres from rock to metal music. Megadeath’s Dave Mustaine said in a Guitar Player interview how his albums have always been influenced by blues music and how “it all goes back to the blues”.

Furthermore, guitar playing is a lot to do with emotion and blues is definitely all about that raw emotion. For instance, the legendary Jimi Hendrix has said, “Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel”. If you want to learn that raw emotion that goes to some of the best guitar riffs of all time, you must understand the roots of blues.

It isn’t just about rock guitarists either, as even the biggest pop stars of today are influenced by blues tunes. John Mayer, for example, often mixes blues influences to his songs.

Striking a Balance

Although learning blues doesn’t automatically make you a better guitarist, it does open you to all sorts of different genres. If you want to understand the rhythms behind some of the biggest guitar riffs, then a bit of blues knowledge won’t hurt you.

It’s a good idea to venture into the influences your favourite guitar players have had. Read a bit about the history of blues music and learn the blues scale. If you then fall in love with the wonderful world of blues, you can continue your journey deeper into the genre. If you don’t get excited about the music, you can still develop your skills as a guitar player through different routes.