How To Solo Like BB King

[steve w]

Dang. I just turned in a Golden Ticket yesterday!!!!

Me too.. and for something didn't really need to. Haven't been on for a few weeks. came on couple of days ago and decided to use golden ticket that had been sat there for months. No new courses on the horizon I thought and.......never mind.

 

[Griff]

Just wanted to leave y'all a heads up that I've replaced the manual on the member portal with the final version that has corrections and is formatted better for digital platforms.

 

[Griff]

Just wanted to leave y'all a heads up that I've replaced the manual on the member portal with the final version that has corrections and is formatted better for digital platforms.

And... depending on when you downloaded that last one I found one more error that has been corrected on lick 18 in the slow blues section.

 

[ervjohns]

Just started looking at the manual and watched the intro video. This is going to be a great course, thanks Griff

 

[Paleo]

@Griff and anyone else who'd like to check these out to see if I'm seriously missing something.


I worked through the "Swing Feel" section first so there's a couple of things in the other 2 sections that I didn't notice until today.


Slow Blues Feel Solo 1: says licks 1,4,7,10 and 13.

However, lick 13 appears in Solo 2 and the last lick that is in the tab for Solo 1 isn't covered in the video.

So there are actually a total of 21 licks in the Section 8 tab for the 3 solos.

5 for Solo 1 (1, 4, 7, 10 and ? ) and 8 each for Solos 2 & 3.



Straight Feel Solo 3: between the first 2 licks, 3 & 6, there are 3 extra notes that aren't included in the breakdown of either lick.

This one's not such a biggie. It's easy enough to play them anyway when doing the play along with you.


Or maybe someone else has already caught these?

 

[Griff]

@Griff and anyone else who'd like to check these out to see if I've seriously missed something.


I worked through the "Swing Feel" section first so there's a couple of things in the other 2 sections that I didn't notice until today.


Slow Blues Feel Solo 1: says licks 1,4,7,10 and 13.

However, lick 13 appears in Solo 2 and the last lick that is in the tab for Solo 1 isn't covered in the video.

So there should actually be 21 licks in Section 7.

5 for Solo 1 (1, 4, 7, 10 and ? ) and 8 each for Solos 2 & 3.




Straight Feel Solo 3: between the first 2 licks, 3 & 6, there are 3 extra notes that aren't included in the breakdown of either lick.

This one's not such a biggie. It's easy enough to play them anyway when doing the play along with you.

Not that I'm doubting your findings (I've made worse mistakes...)

But would you double check that you have the most recent version of the manual? That sounds like something I thought I corrected in the manual to make it line up with the video. I don't remember seeing something off in the video at the time.

 

[Paleo]

Yeah I just downloaded the manual again. The last 3 measures of Slow Blues Solo 1 aren't lick 13.

Lick 13 appears in measure 7 of Solo 2 over a D7 chord.

Solo 1 is in Bb.

I noticed when I was going through the licks listed for each Solo that lick 13 was listed as being in both Solo 1 and Solo 2.

Which was kind of odd since they are in different keys.


I watched each video this afternoon and double checked that each lick breakdown corresponded with the manual.

Then I like to go through the solos and map out each lick.

And then watch the onscreen tab as you play it to make sure everything matches.

That last lick in the tab for Solo 1 doesn't appear in the video breakdown or the tab for the licks in Section 7.

At least I'm not seeing it anywhere other than in the tab for Solo 1.

 

[Paleo]

@Griff I hope I'm not confusing things.

The video breakdown of the Slow blues licks matches the tab of the licks in the manual.

The video play along of Solo 1 matches the tab of Solo 1 in the manual.

However the last lick of the play along and tab of the solo isn't one of the licks covered in the breakdown.

 

[Paleo]

Just looking through the 20 Slow Blues Licks in Section 7, only 4 licks (1, 4, 7 and 10) are in Bb.

However there are 5 licks in the Solo.

 

[Paleo]

@Griff

OK. I think I figured out what happened.

Based on the order you were presenting the licks in each section, Lick 13 should always be the 5th lick of Solo 1 in that "feel".

So that last lick in Solo 1 is the 5th lick of the solo and should have been Lick 13.

Then the lick that is labeled 13 would be 14 and each subsequent lick number would be increased by 1.

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

Lick 13, the 5th lick, is in D7?

After looking this over:

Lick 1 = Solo bars 1-3 (bar one appears to be an intro).

Lick 4 = Solo bars 4-5

Lick 7 = Solo bars 6-8 (ends at first note of bar 8)

Lick 10 = Solo bars 8 (minus the first note)-10

Lick 13? Not used.

Bars 11-13? Cannot find corresponding Licks

Tom

 

[Griff]

OK, clearly I'm going to have to look into that. Might take me a little bit to figure out what happened but I'll look into it and see how to fix it.

 

[Paleo]

@Griff (and anyone else interested )

I realized that rather than go through each solo lick by lick, you went through the first lick of each solo, then the second of each solo, etc.

Effectively, every 3rd lick is the next lick of a solo.

For the Swing Feel, which had 6 licks in each solo, the lick numbers are as follows:

Solo 1: 1 4 7 10 13 16
Solo 2: 2 5 8 11 14 17
Solo 3: 3 6 9 12 15 18

The numbers for the Straight Feel are exactly the same through lick 6 of each (1-18), with and extra lick in Solos 1 & 3.

Solo 1: 1 4 7 10 13 16 20
Solo 2: 2 5 8 11 14 17
Solo 3: 3 6 9 12 15 18 19


The numbers in the Slow blues section should also be the same up through Lick 5 (1-15).

However, both Solo 1 and 2 have a Lick 13.

Solo 1: 1 4 7 10 13
Solo 2: 2 5 8 11 13 15 17 19
Solo 3: 3 6 9 12 14 16 18 20

Apparently you inadvertently skipped over the 5th Lick in Solo 1, which should have been Lick 13 and went on to number the 5th Lick in Solo 2 as 13 when it should have been 14.

So each subsequent Lick number is off by 1.

So it actually looks like this with no 5th lick demonstrated for Solo 1. It’s in the tab and video for the Solo, just not in the video breakdown or list of Licks for the section.

Solo 1: 1 4 7 10 ?
Solo 2: 2 5 8 11 13 15 17 19
Solo 3: 3 6 9 12 14 16 18 20


The easiest (?) thing to do without a lot of editing or re-shooting would be to just call that last lick in Solo 1, Lick 21

Then things would look like this:

Solo 1: 1 4 7 10 21
Solo 2: 2 5 8 11 13 15 17 19
Solo 3: 3 6 9 12 14 16 18 20


All the videos would be fine with just one small discrepancy in the intro to Solo 1. Instead of licks 1 4 7 10 13 you have 1 4 7 10 21.


Then you could add a video for Lick 21 to the course online?

Again, that lick is in the Video and tab for Solo 1. It's just not discussed in the video breakdown or shown in the tab for the licks in that section.

 

[Griff]

Alright... well, I don't know how that happened, but I'll look into it. That won't be trivial to fix and will take me a while, but I'll spend some time and get it straight in my mind and then figure out how to fix the video and manual to match.

 

[Iheartbacon]

well, I don't know how that happened

I am thinking whiskey Wednesday may have played a role.

 

[Griff]

I am thinking whiskey Wednesday may have played a role.

I can neither confirm not deny said reports of my behavior

 

[Griff]

The good news is, I now see what went wrong...

The band news is, the studio is torn down because I'm in the process of moving it.

So, it'll probably be a few weeks before I can fix this. Like you said, I'll add lick 21, and I'll re-shoot the intro to the solo to get the numbers right, and I'll add lick 21 to the manual.

When I get all that done I'll replace the digital files right away, and while I can't re-press the DVDs that are out now, I can fix it for the next pressing.

 

[MikeS]

Question...
In Sections 3 Lick 6 there is a one step first finger bend followed by three increasing third finger one step bends (3 steps).
You say that they should be cut off and it sounds like you you are bending to pitch then striking the string. To my ear I can't her the difference between bending to pitch then striking and just moving to the next fret ( a 5 staccato not "walk" from the D to F#).
Is there a tonal reason for the bends instead of the walk or is it just to get our bends some practice (particularly the first finger bend)?

 

[Paleo]

Maybe because that's the way BB did it?

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

I am all for doing it the way you like!

Tom