Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Soulful blues lead guitar tutorial – Using the major & minor pentatonic scales – Guitar Lesson – EP453

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn a soulful blues lead that uses simple phrasing and comes from the major & minor pentatonic scales.

Here’s a link to the MicroLesson that shows how to play this song by yourself (without a jam track.

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Comments

      • Brian says

        What needs to be corrected? I said it SLIGHTLY different when I shot the video, so I adjusted the tab for that video to match exactly what I was showing on screen. The On-Screen Tab Viewer, however, does match the tab for the video on screen. I take offense to the “substandard tech support” line – not sure what you’re referring to here. care to elaborate? Lastly, the GP7 files would be foolish to give out because they can easily be copied, pasted, and re-shared by guitar teachers, others online, etc. That’s literally giving away a piece of intellectual property. I’ve already had 3 cases this year, with people ripping off my songs , putting them up on YouTube and selling them!

  16. pschlosb says

    Love it! Everybody wants to add more and more intricacies and sophistication, but you are showing how
    simply just playing the scale can sound as good or BETTER than all the new scales and bells and whistles.
    I love songs like this, with heart and soul

  23. Vernon says

    Great lesson Brian. I’m now two years into this guitar journey. Totally worth it. If you put the time in, you will get better than you thought you could. BTW, you have got me hooked on Keith Richards. One of the all time best!! I know he is one of your favorites too.

  24. A.S. says

    Great lesson, much appreciated…..and if I may make a request: A series of (blues) rock (rhythm) lessons would be equally great (Gary Clark Jr., Joe Bonnamassa, Eric Gales, Samantha Fish, …..)…..just something with a bit more crunch….

  27. Anthony G says

    I know it is probably a lot more work at least creatively, but these are my favorite types of lesson. I really like the key of B just sounds so different. I know my way around the guitar as I have been playing for many years, but beside new ideas what I really get from your lesson is learning how you phrase and make common notes sound so melodic and musical.
    Well done.

  28. Aaron P. says

    LOVE your soulful lessons Brian!!! Don’t let too much time pass between lessons like these! So many takeaways. Love how you can create such a beautiful melody and keep it relatively simple and in the same key.

  31. Aaron P. says

    QUESTION…..I’m still learning my way around the guitar neck…can anyone please explain to me why the 4th fret is the root here for Pattern 1 of the Key of B?? I guess I’m looking at things wrong, but I thought the root fret for pattern one would be on the 7th fret for the Key of B. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

  36. William H says

    Super sweet. Was out this morning and when i got home……took a second and then i remembered. It’s Saturday! a new AM Lesson.
    You did not disappoint this week Brian. something myself and i think many of us look forward to.

  41. Dave says

    This one went straight my favs! Fun to play / learn. Aside form a rally pleasant tune. This one has a lot of subtleties to discover and every time I play it, it keeps getting better.. Thanks Brain, really like this one!

  43. RANDY M says

    Thanks for bringing up your mistake. It had me working to figure it out. I kept counting up the E string and then the A string.
    Is it correct to use the first finger full barre placement with the E string and the A string? Without the green dots it makes the lessons more difficult for me.
    I had fun with your recent Clapton and this one goes into my keeper book as well.

  44. Mark H says

    This is a very catchy number, it’s been going around my head since I started studying it more closely.
    I’m finding plenty of learning material and some broadly-applicable licks and tricks in this one.

  45. John Tillis Jr. says

    you always say you should know the minor and major cords or something like that {SCALES} because we have done them I have played by ear for 35 plus years and just started this with you.
    for the most part its great. you are answering a lot of questions every day for me.. THE WHY of things so to say
    When you say its the minor penatonic ??? I wish you would give me the lesson number? thanks Brian.

  47. Fred P says

    I’ve been falling behind on your lessons because I’ve been focusing on Eric Clapton’s “The Lady In The Balcony” acoustic stuff. But this one is super, and I’m going to spend some time absorbing it. Then get back to Clapton! 🙂

  52. Louis G says

    Thank’s Brian, i love this lesson! Everything is perfect but i would really appreciate a slow version without the guitar. I have slow hands. A slow version wihout the guitar would be great every time you offer backtracks.

  56. David S says

    Brian, You just keep knocking them out of the ballpark.Love this style, How you put soul in to it, The touch you put into it, Really like the key of B and all your hard work you keep putting into
    these lessons. You are putting out a lot of good guitar players with your teaching style.Keep up the good work. You are a great person. Dave

    • Derek H says

      Not quite. in scale degrees It’s 4, 5, 6 walk up to the root of the B. E, F# G# B. Theres a strong influence here from an artist Brian has based lessons on who before. Those artists, in turn, had strong influences on them. I love this lesson for exactly this reason. It’s in the style of which was in the style of which was in the style of. and so on.

      Just forget you knew my name…

  59. Cary says

    Dripping with soulful phrasing, love this lesson, great opportunity to really focus on the emotion. And goes fabulous with my red Gretsch streamliner (poor man’s ES 335 LOL) and 4 watt Vox tube amp!

  62. David E says

    Brian – This is my all time favourite lesson. I love soulful slow blues leads and this is just great. Thank you so much for sharing how to play this type of playing. I am not a fast player so this is right up my street. Your explanations are always brilliant. If you can I would really appreciate more in this style.

  66. Rich F says

    This is really interesting! I am getting into the modes (Dorian etc) from some of Brian’s other lessons. I am watching this one now, and comparing it with the linked micro-lesson. Although Brian is staying in B major and minor pentatonic for the lead, I am thinking about the modes.

    When Brian goes to the second chord, chord 2 in the B major family, c sharp minor, he stays with B major pentatonic… as he says at 6.48 seconds in the lesson above, it sounds minor, although it is B Major pentatonic! To my confused ear, I am not sure if it sounds major or minor: is this because I have listened to the backing track before-hand, and know that at this point it goes to the c sharp minor chord?

    To add to the mystery (for me), when I watch the call and response micro lesson, Brian plays B major pentatonic as a response to the c sharp minor chord in the second measure.. and says in a way at this stage, by playing B major pentatonic, he is playing notes from the c sharp Dorian (which is a minor mode)!

    So, I am thinking, there coukd be two ways to play this: stay in the B major and minor pentatonics (as Brian does), and/or play in c sharp dorian (pattern 1 of c sharp minor pentatonic, starting at fret 9, with those extra two dorian notes added to the pattern), and hang out in that pattern… now, as the chords go by, the tune will move between B major, c sharp Dorian, E lydian, back to B major…???

    (The on.y weird one is the borrowed chord A…)

    Anyway, perhaps over-thinking it… I am going to grab my guitar today to see if this works!

    Thanks again Brian for a wonderful lesson, and a beautiful chord progression!

  71. Steven P says

    Hi Brian – just “re-discovered” this lesson after doing quite a lot of pentatonic and diatonic learning and really helped make some things “click” for me plus there are some really tasteful lines in here I am going to shamelessly steal and put in my memory banks for sure (but not for commercial gain I promise, no one would pay to hear me play!) I could hear “I’d rather go blind “in a lot of the phrases certainly as in the Chicken Shack version as sung by their then singer the late Christine Perfect – one of my all time favourite tracks!
    So a big thank you for this lesson in particular but also for all of active melody across the whole spectrum you teach. Your style and the way you convey knowledge and encourage us to use stuff “not just memorize the dots” is really good…,challenging but I’m definitely getting better even though its a long road ahead! – Cheers , Steve

  72. Glen G says

    Brian, this is such a great lesson. The amount of quality material in AM is, to put it lightly, overwhelming. This lesson really helped me connect the dots in understanding how major and minor pentatonics can play in the same sandbox. Cheers!!

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