Practicing For Better Rhythm In Solos…
Being able to play in different beat subdivisions is a HUGE part of playing and soloing effectively… After all, you only have two things to work with, the order of the notes, and the rhythms! Wanna see how you can improve quickly? Grab your metronome and get ready to count along with me…
Mixing Major And Minor In 1st Position
Mixing up the Major and Minor Blues sounds can be essential to really nailing the blues sound… … but it can also be a big pain in the neck! When do you change? How do you change? How do you practice it? All of that and more in today’s video… If you want more info…
Rory Gallagher Blues Rock Riff
This riff came from a Rory Gallagher recording, but I’ve heard it (or variations of it) in many songs over the years (CCR comes to mind, even though I can’t think of which song.) It’s in E, and like many blues things in E, it’s based around the open position E minor box 1/box 2…
Playing “Acoustic” On Electric
These last few days we’ve been talking a lot about “acoustic” blues, in the sense that it’s blues you play by yourself – and not with a band… But I really want to emphasize that these skills are just as useful on an electric guitar – with a band – as they are without! In…
Twisting Up A Jimmy Page Lick
Let’s take a simple, 4 note Jimmy Page style sequence of minor pentatonic notes, and look at some quick ways we can manipulate it into some different sounds without changing the notes… only the beats 🙂 This is important because it helps to see that, once your fingers can make some movements, there are a…
That Texas “Chunka Chunka” Rhythm Thing…
In today’s lesson we’ll talk about how to get that Texas-style “chunk” out of your blues rhythms. Also, we’ll talk about where a lot of those different classic riffs in the style of SRV and Kenny Wayne Shepherd (and that Griff Hamlin guy) come from. Grab your guitar and let’s get going:
Soloing In E Without Box 1
This is a short video based on a question from a viewer who was struggling with soloing over a blues in E… which I understand (because I had the same problem when I was new to soloing.) E is an odd key because, on the low end, Box 1 of the Pentatonic scale is in…
BB King 4 Note Lick
There are very few blues players that can do what BB King did… He could play just a handful of notes with more soul than most of us will ever be able to come up with. This lick is a throwback to the good ole’ 4 note solo, but straight out of “The Thrill Is…
How To Find I, IV, And V – And More…
In this video, filmed live, we’ll talk about how you use the major scale, and some basic music theory to find the I, IV, and V chords in any key for playing a blues. You don’t have to use any music theory at all, you can just follow the process and take my word for…
Blues Phrasing Using Rhythm Figures
This is a lesson aimed at anyone trying to do some blues soloing, but struggling to make sense with what you’re playing. It’s easy to just throw stuff against a wall and see if it sticks, but it’s a brand new game when you start thinking ahead and using what you’ve played before to influence…
