Welcome to this Texas Blues study with Mike Bradley!

Here we'll take a deep dive into the history and playing styles that define this highly influential genre. We'll study seven key artists that were the most influential to the wider guitar community and look at what we can learn from them.

In this first lesson, we go back to where it all started with Texas Blues pioneer Lightnin' Hopkins. Hopkins' style was born from spending many hours playing informally without a backing band. His distinctive fingerstyle technique often included playing, in effect, bass, rhythm, lead, and percussion at the same time.

In this first lesson, we begin with a simple 12 bar blues in the key of E with just a few simple lead lines. In lesson 2, we'll add more lead parts and increase the difficulty while still basing everything on the principals covered in this first lesson.

Lightnin' Hopkins 1 - interactive tab

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N.B. Activate the fretboard graphic on the tab above to see scales, chords and neck shapes brought to life!

Scale used - E minor pentatonic scale

Primarily, the lead notes from this jam use the E minor pentatonic scale.

Blue = notes from shape 1. Orange - notes from shape 2