Many times over the years I’ve heard the question, “How do you start your blues solos?”<\/p>\n
And for the longest time, I didn’t really know how to answer that. After all I, like many blues players throughout history, just sort of gathered how to start my solo after learning a bunch of solos from other guitar players that came before me.<\/p>\n
But if you don’t have enough experience under your belt to tell you what to do (and let’s be honest, experience is a far better teacher than any person can be) then the next best thing are rules you can use that will guarantee things sound good.<\/p>\n
And as I’ve said before, a guaranteed approach doesn’t mean it’s the only approach, it means it’s guaranteed to work every time and sound good. A different approach might also work, but it might not. If there’s any chance of error, it’s not a guarantee now, is it?<\/p>\n
So instead of trying to think of a good set of rules for starting a blues solo, I decided to go to the source. I have several lists of common tunes found at jam sessions… and I’ve played a few hundred of them over the years myself \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Which led me to think I should just go to the source(s) and see how guys like BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and others, start their solos.<\/p>\n
And what I found was pretty interesting and pretty close to what I expected (except that Duane Allman guy messing things up…)<\/p>\n