Playing With The Changes - Professional Blues Solos (Patreon)

Today we are going to learn how level up your blues soloing to a whole new... well... level! When I first started learning how to solo over the blues I would only use just the minor pentatonic scale. So if the blues was in A, I would solo in A minor pentatonic. If I would solo over a blues in C, it would be C minor pentatonic. After about a year of that I started incorporating the b5th interval, which has been dubbed "the devil's 5th" and when I started using it as a passing tone I noticed that my solos were starting to sound a lot better. After that I started to really start to pay attention to my phrasing. What do I mean by that? I mean that I would really try and get my licks to not only be expressive, but connect with the other licks in the solo and I also highlight the underlying harmony. I started with that journey by resolving licks on the root, meaning if the harmony was A7, I would land on the A, if it was E7, the lick would finish on the E. Then I came across BB King talking about the BB Box, and it occurred to me, the scale is just a way to make it easier to find the intervals, but the it is really about the intervals, not the scale. Okay, so he is mixing the major and the minor scale, okay so that way I can hammer on the major 3rd, and I can add some major flavor to what I have going on, so why not just use the arpeggios? That works great, too! So why not modes? This scale will throw in the Dorian and Mixolydian modes as well. Enjoy!

Will improve

• Double stops
• Triplets
• Use of the Dorian mode
• Use of the Mixoldyian mode
• Mixing major and minor scales
• The b5th
• Arpeggios
• Using full chord shapes in your solo

Related Lessons

• The Blues Scale 
• Root Note Phrasing 
• B.B. Box 
• Mixolydian Masterclass