This is Part 2 (of 3) of a blues phrasing mini-series for guitar. If you've ever struggled with not knowing what to do with all of the scales and information that you've learned for guitar, this mini-series will be perfect for you. It's designed to give you some essential tools to get you improvising right away. This lesson focuses on combining the major and minor pentatonic scales so that they can be played in the same area, as opposed to 2 separate areas on the neck like we learned in the … [Read more...]
Rock, Blues Guitar Lead – Mixing the Major & Minor Pentatonic Scales – EP276
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a rock, blues lead in the key of C by mixing both major and minor pentatonic scales. I'll explain the theory behind each of the licks so that you can use them going forward when you improvise (in any key). … [Read more...]
Soulful, Blues Lead Played Over a Gospel Style Chord Progression – Blues Guitar Lesson – EP252
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a soulful, blues lead over a gospel style chord progression. This is played in the key of G, but I'll show you how to relate all of the notes / licks back to common chord shapes so that you can use these licks in any key. Mp3 Jam track available in 2 tempos. … [Read more...]
Mixing The Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales – EP130
In this guitar lesson, you'll learn how beneficial it is to combine the major and minor pentatonic scales. This lesson comes with visual diagrams to help you visualize the overlap between the two scales. It also comes with a total of 6 licks that you can use to practice with (licks that combine both scales). If you've always wondered how it works, and where artists like Eric Clapton and Freddie King get a lot of their licks from, you'll enjoy this lesson. … [Read more...]
Albert King Style Blues Guitar Lesson – EP101
Learn how to play an Albert King style lead in this slow electric blues guitar lesson (in the key of G). I try to make most of these lessons in a way that they can work on electric or acoustic, but when you're dealing with some of the Chicago blues guys (like Albert King), a large part of their sound is made up of bending strings, which is really hard to do on acoustic. This one will wear the tips of your fingers out for sure, but trust me it's worth it! … [Read more...]
3 Useful Blues Guitar Licks – EP042
In this guitar lesson I wanted to try and simplify things a bit, by limiting the minor pentatonic scale to only 6 notes and working within those 6 notes to develop licks. The 3 licks that come from those notes are repeatable (or loopable), meaning that you can play them at any point within the jam track and they'll just work. Hopefully you'll take these licks and add them to your own playing and learn how to transpose them to whatever key the song happens to be in. … [Read more...]
Switching Between The Natural Minor Scale and the Major Scale Within a Song – EP023
In this guitar lesson, we’ll continue looking at the natural minor scale (this is a continuation of the previous EP022 Natural Minor Scale Guitar Lesson). This lesson contains 2 very different solos that demonstrate how different a song can feel, depending on how you choose to approach the solo. I always like to use the analogy that guitar licks are really just words, and it’s up to you to form sentences with those words, so remember, have something to say! Don’t just throw a bunch of notes … [Read more...]
Natural Minor Scale In The Key of A – EP022
In this guitar lesson, I’ll break down the natural minor scale in the key of A, and show you the notes. Keep in mind, this is basically the minor pentatonic scale with just a few extra notes thrown in – so don’t let it intimidate you. If you aren’t sure what the minor pentatonic scale is, take a look at this lesson: Understanding how to play blues guitar solo: Minor Pentatonic Scale. I’ll demonstrate how to play 3 different licks in this lesson (each of them have only 4 notes), and for … [Read more...]
How To Create a Solo Using Only 3 Notes – Using Both Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales – LEG023
This lesson is really just a continuation of the overview of the major and minor pentatonic scales which I did previously. I intentionally don't point out any specific note for note solos in this lesson because I'm trying to keep the focus on dynamics, in fact I've stripped the solos down to only three notes in both the major and minor pentatonic scales to show that you can have a decent sounding guitar solo without going nuts, by simply playing notes that sound good. That involves adding the … [Read more...]
Understanding The Major and the Minor (Blues) Pentatonic Scales – LEG024
In this lesson I'm not going to necessarily show you how to play a particular solo, but more importantly give you a brief overview of how solos are created. I demonstrate both the major and the minor (blues scale) pentatonic scales in this lesson - assuming we're in the key of E. Now this lesson is by no means meant to be super comprehensive and give you all the different positions for these scales, but this will give you a good overview and show how these 2 scales can work together. I'm going … [Read more...]
