How to play Roadhouse Blues by The Doors

Sep 30, 2015 | Intermediate Harmonica Lessons

Hello, welcome to this week’s harmonica lesson. I will be showing you how to play the main licks in the doors song Roadhouse blues. You will need a harmonica in the key of A. We are playing in second position, which means that you are playing in the key of E.


Watch the original

If you don’t know how the original song goes, I suggest that you click below to listen to it. Then when you are comfortable playing each lick see how they all fit together.

You will hear that there is a lot of repetition in the song. This makes for a nice hypnotic groove.

The style of blues is basically a one chord blues where the guitar is just sitting on the
E chord. There is a turnaround that you can hear at the end of the verse. You will need to combine licks 2 and 3 to play the turnaround.

Intro licks

The licks build on the first licks basic idea. There is a lot of accent being placed on the offbeat. This is called syncopation.

Once you are comfortable playing intro lick 1 and can play it in a loop, move on to adding licks 2 and 3.

Verse licks

During the verse, you will be playing lick 1 around Jim Morrison’s vocals. Licks 2 and 3 will need to be played with Jim Morrison’s vocal. Really concentrate on getting the timing synced up with the voice and guitar.

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed this lesson, please share it with your friends.

See you again for the next harmonica video!

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