Fretboard Road Map

Gerry Beaudoin Interview: “American Idol? Jazz is our contribution to the world.”

Beaudoin has also defined itself as a business man with his experience with logistics, legal and various other matters related to the business side of the music industry.

In 90 years, Gerry founded the elegant Boston Jazz Ensemble that blends with the style of the 50s jazz that moves between the toe-tapping swing and cool. He then collaborated with bluesman Duke Robillard and mandolinist David Grisman for their recording of "Minor Swing" and later asked Grisman to join him again, this time with the legendary jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli.

Gerry has a knack for pulling together musicians from varying styles to form exciting collaborations. Players such as Frank Vignola, Jay Geils, Howard Alden, Andy Summers, among others, have contributed to and shared in his musical vision.

Rick Landers: Your collaborative work with J. Geils and Duke Robillard is an interesting array of guitar talent, bringing together musicians known in their own worlds of blues, jazz and rock. Are you just friends playing for fun or is there some overriding musical ambition going on when you’re together?

Gerry Beaudoin: Of course we play together because it is so much fun and also because we admire each other and are the best of friends. But we also are trying to promote that jazzy, bluesy style of swing guitar that is our common heritage.

Always in concert we see people snapping their fingers and tapping their feet. We also are enthralled with playing in three part harmony together like a sax section. We also enjoy hanging out, so the road life and gigs give us that opportunity.

We just finished a really successful tour of western Canada, and at the end I jokingly told Duke I was going to miss having breakfast with him because when we tour with Duke, we are the early risers and the only ones at breakfast.

Rick: How did you guys meet?

Gerry Beaudoin: Long story. Jay and Duke have known each other since the ’60s when Jay was with the J. Geils Blues Band and Duke was fronting Roomful of Blues. They weren’t really close friends then, but were aware of each other. I, in turn being somewhat younger, was aware of them both.

First, because of their music, then some time in the ’70s, my older cousin Paul took me to see Roomful of Blues in Rhode Island. He’d seen them the week before and told me they had a great guitar player. I went with him and have been a Duke fan ever since.

An Essential Blues Guitar Fretboard Roadmap - Blues Guitar Fun

This short lesson shows two essential fretboard patterns you can use to play the blues chord progression in any key.

If you’ve already studied the 12 bar blues progression then you’ll know that it uses three chords known as the I, IV and V chords. You can play these chords in any key by following one of the simple patterns shown below.

To use these patterns you need to know how to play at least one of the following chord types:

* An E7 shape bar chord with its root on the sixth string and an A7 shape bar chord with its root on the fifth string.

* The blues shuffle pattern using two note chords.

These shapes are shown later in the lesson as a reminder, or introduction if you don’t know them yet.

Start your blues with a I chord using the E shape with its root on the sixth string. You can play the IV and V chords with the A shape that has its root on the 5th string.

The IV chord’s root is on the 5th string at the same fret as the I chord. The V chord has its root two frets up from this. The relative positions of the chord roots are shown in the diagram below.

Alternatively, you can start your blues with an A shape chord. The diagram below shows what the pattern looks like when you start with a fifth string root I chord.

This time the IV and V chords are E shape bar chords with their roots on the 6th string. The IV chord is found two frets back from the I chord and the V chord is at the same fret, right above the I chord root.

Below are diagrams of the sixth and fifth string root chords you can use with these patterns.

You can use the two notes on the lowest two strings of each chord as the starting position for two-note blues shuffle chords.

To use these positions to play the 12 bar blues in any key you have to memorize the names of the notes on the 6th and the 5th string of your guitar.

Find the root note for the key you want on either the fifth or the sixth string and then apply one of the patterns above.

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