Another blues jam night.  Since I am not able to record our jam sessions at this point, I wanted share some resources each week that has helped me become a better blues player and musician.

100 Killer Licks & Chops for Blues Guitar is a great resource for anyone learning the blues. The 100 licks are all laid out in tabs (as well as notation), and can be listened to with a professional backing track on the CD that comes with the book. Beyond the 100 licks, this book goes into chord progressions, scales, and even some music theory.

Here’s what sold me on this book.

Each lick is actually mimicking great musicians like Freddie King, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Johnson, and many more.  Along with each style these and other musicians bring to the table, this book gives some history on each page about these artists. 100 Blues Licks also gets into how each particular guitar lick fits in a song, and also some things to watch out for.

I’ve experienced huge benefits from utilizing this book. If you are just wanting to dive right into to playing the blues, I highly recommend picking this book up.

It defeated me.

Unfortunately this is not the first time, thus my interest in reading Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process by Blaine Hogan.  The book is quite short, but has given some good insight when facing a problem like this.

Apparently this is something that many other artists have to overcome as well.  Really, I just need to force myself to put my pen down on the paper and write (or draw).  And then I need to be okay with whatever happens after that.

It’s been said that for every 100 songs written, only 10 are seen as decent. I have not even come close to writing this many songs, but the point makes perfect sense.

I think the biggest problem I face, as well as many other artists, is that a blank page is not necessarily the scary part, it’s creating something that is sub-par.  Once I am okay with creating some sub-par stuff on paper, then perhaps I’ll see a glimpse of something great.

Today is another day, so the journey continues.