Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Play a Slow Blues Composition By Yourself on Guitar (No Accompaniment) – EP268

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a solo blues composition on electric or acoustic guitar that requires no accompaniment. You’ll be able to play this at ANY tempo and it will sound great – slow or fast. Just grab a guitar and a pick and start learning 🙂

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walk-Through

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

      • Peter B says

        I was taken back by this lesson and its simplicity once you spent the time to move us through the major and minor pentatonic of the song. They are very subtle but so locked in to the feel as we progress through the 12 bars.

  4. David M says

    Brian – Great lesson! Please keep the Blues coming. I love them. Great find on that guitar – Reminds me of my Epiphone 1966 Century Re-issue I picked up last year. One pickup guitars are so great.

  11. sunburst says

    “DEATH METAL” LOL.. You are amazing funny too.. ty for sharing about amp settings too.. i only wish I could try as many amps as I am different guitars from inlaws guitar shop.. btw that is a cool arch top guitar find too! Maybe down the road another light jazz composition? lol enjoy!

  20. Fitz S says

    Brilliant lesson, as ever, Brian. Just a quick question: at 12.55, you say that you’re going to the five chord, but it’s the fourth (A), correct?
    Sorry to share my confusion and please know that you have a devoted following on the other side of the pond…

  21. Don D. says

    Hey Brian, I haven’t put any of the lessons together well enough to present one of them in the Challenge this month, but I want you to know that I always wish you the best.

    This is an absolutely beautiful lesson wiht a lot to take away. I haven’t finished last week’s but I had to jump to this. Once every couple dozen, you put one out that really moves me. This is one of those!

  22. Mark C says

    Brian, I’m doing 224, the Kenny Burrell jazz composition. I learned a lot. But you are in the key of F and use a Gm pentatonic . Why not a Dm? I guess you can do that—I tried it in other keys and the notes fit—a combination of major and minor scales.

    Thanks. Mark

  24. Bruce M says

    that major/minor lick you said you got from Luther Dickinson is a typical thing happening in a lot of Hill Country stuff. although I first learned it from Skip James. He played in open minor tuning and was constantly hammering on or sliding between those. sounds great the way you incorporated it also.

  25. Paddy C says

    Excellent lesson Brian,
    Also not sure what date your Birthday is but I see other members wishing you happy birthday so…………….. Happy Birthday man hope it’s a good one 🙂

  29. San Luis Rey says

    Just back from vacation to find another great lesson waiting. Thanks Brian! What a wonderful guitar find. It sounds absolutely perfect, especially for this lesson. Way cool looking too with that pickup and tailpiece. Maybe the mild angle of the head stock helps keep it in tune. One of your hats would go well with this classic. Congrats!

  37. Corky C says

    Brian, Thanks for all you do. Another great lesson. I just have one question:
    I have memorized the pentatonic patterns but I can’t understand and hear the major sounding happier or the minor sadder… My question is if the difference is only 3 frets and it’s the exact same pattern and the strings are the same tuning relative to each other, how can it sound any different other than being three frets different in origin?
    Thanks,
    Corky C

  38. FRANCIS C says

    ur, never mind ma, I’m having trouble making this sound like a blues number….how can I get the cadence down? Should I keep listening to the beginning where you play the whole thing through at normal speed?

  41. Odin says

    Hi Brian really enjoying this one and combined with EP130 some of the theory is getting through, had some fun messing about using the riffs with a finger style Delta mono bass as in EP177.

    Cheers Odin

  43. Gene D says

    I enjoy the finished product, but the speed in which you go over notes is ridiculous. Especially when you say oh yeah I forgot this and then you take two seconds to explain it You jump to the next part and I don’t know about anybody else, but I have to watch the video over and over and over just to catch what you said.

  49. Rob H says

    Thanks Brian!…..love these slow solo blues lessons. Have improved enough to upgrade from a squire to a strat and this composition sounds amazing. Thanks to your website I now realise I can get to a standard or quality of blues playing I never thought possible!

  50. RIFF DIGGER says

    I’ve been playing bass in clubs for decades and switched to guitar after moving to a small town from Los Angeles only to find everyone is a bass player here and there are few drummers-so I was a pretty lonely bassist, LOL. Started playing guitar to YouTube teachers and could not even play a 3 chord country song but kept at it with YouTube lessons and 8 select teachers for11 months, with slow but steady progress on 6 string guitar-and through attrition found you and your program. Since I love the blues, blues rock, blues jazz, Clapton, Cream etc- I really gravitated to your lessons, #268, #176, #127.

    I printed the tab charts and wish you had them on the member add-on performances as well. I want to say, learning WITH YOU is fun, but hard work-you really have to focus and take it in chunks, giving one’s brain a rest, then hit it again. I akin it to Algebra. Then to memorize it-that’s more work, then to play it in TIME with a metronome and learn the fingering, more work-but because your lessons are so PURE, and dynamic-the payoffs far exceed the work involved. And I want to thank you. BTW it has helped my bass playing in the sense that I understand harmony and musicality in a deeper way, even eclipsing my jazz bass studies. Many great bassists go to piano to reach higher but I think blues guitar exceeds that because you are working with strings, vibrato, octaves, bends, and technique plus the calluses do carry over when I hit the Warwick or Fender Jazz basses. Thx again.

  51. Glen T says

    Great work on this, Brian. I particularly like your pointing out the boxes the riffs are in as a way to better grasp the reasons behind why certain things work the way they do.

  52. wrex says

    I’m a long, long time subscriber, and have never commented before, but I’ve got to say this is my absolutely favorite lesson. I’m almost completely self-taught, so my learning path has been weirdly backward from most people: I started by learning way too much theory (notes on the fretboard, pentatonic scales forward and backward, mixing major and minor, emphasizing thirds and sevenths, etc.) before I ever really learned any licks. In fact I always struggled to learn licks, and never seemed able to apply them very well.

    This composition has so, so many really tasty licks throughout! Seeing them applied and in context is incredibly helpful. This single composition taught me more re-usable licks than anything else I’ve studied.

    I think my main struggle with licks has been rhythm more than anything: starting on the right beat over (or leading to) the right chord. The Soundslice player widget has been invaluable. It’s helping me absolutely nail the timing and learn the entire composition.

    Thanks, Brian. You’re an inspiration.

  53. Steven G says

    It was this lesson, that I decided that I would join Active Melody, you are a bloody awesome teacher mate, bloody awesome.

    Just in two weeks I have improved OUT OF SIGHT…

    Thank you Brian.. LEGEND !!!!

  57. Glen T says

    Hi Brian.
    At 11:50 you point where it’s very easy to move from major to minor and added that there are other such places all over the neck.
    Could you perhaps elaborate in a mico-lesson?
    Love this lesson.
    Glen

  64. RIFF DIGGER says

    I wanted to get tight on this and a speaking metronome wasn’t getting me there, even though I memorized the entire section. That took time, but worth it, since I love the 2 x12 bar choruses (with the 2 bar intro). So I wrote out each note that hits ONE from the beginning. E4, then B5 in the next measure etc. all the way through until bar 26. Then when I play it to my Boss Dr. Beat DB-88 with the voice ON, I get the time- and the groove locked in, until I have it by feel as well. I may do this with the 3 beat as well, so I own the 1&3 instead of just renting it.

  65. Fredrik W says

    Hi Brian. I think your way of conveying music and constantly bringing the basics why it looks like it does with the chords and solos is very good. You play the kind of music that I myself want to play so really fun to have you as a guitar teacher. Regards Fredrik from Sweden

  69. Stuart R says

    Great lesson thanks Brian.

    I’m almost there with this one.

    I only wish I had a Vintage Vega Odell C-26 Archtop Guitar with D’Armond Pickup to play it on. I’ve been searching for one & think I found your actual guitar on Reverb as the seller is in Nashville but the post is still there. I’ll probably never find one exactly the same so well looked after. If I do I might have to explain my credit card bill to my girlfriend!

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