"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." — Proverb

Learn a blues guitar lick from a book, video or teacher, and you feed yourself for a day. But learn how to turn each lick you learn into many and you’ll have an endless flow of new licks to feed your playing every day.

Here is a list of simple techniques that will help you turn every blues guitar lick you learn into an abundant supply of new licks to practice. Apply as many, or as few, of them as you like to create endless ideas and avoid the trap of playing the same licks over and over again.

1. Change Octaves

An easy change is to play exactly the same lick an octave higher or lower. You’ll develop your knowledge of the fretboard and of different scale positions as well as exercise your fingers with different fingering patterns.

2. Change Key

Simply move a lick up or down the fretboard and you change its key. This is another great way to build your familiarity with the guitar fretboard.

3. Change Rhythm Pattern

Keep the original lick’s note pitches but make some changes to the rhythm pattern. Simply replace some note durations with different values. Your new licks don’t have to remain the same length as the original but if they do then they can be easily interchanged.

4. Change Notes

You can also start to play around with the pitches of the notes in your lick. Add an ascending movement instead of a descent, or vice versa, or try out larger or smaller intervals between notes. You can change as few or as many notes as you like.

5. Change Playing Effects

Add, remove, move or swap playing effects such as bends, slides, hammers and vibrato. You can also add chromatic movements to lead into notes from a half step (or more) below or above.

6. Reverse

This is a change that’s quite simple to do, but might not be so easy to play. Put the lick into reverse order and play it backwards from the last note to the first note.

7. Shuffle

Shuffle a lick by taking parts of it and changing their order, for example, reverse bars one and two of a two bar lick. You can shuffle beats within bars too.

8. Call And Response

Another good way to create new licks is to play the lick as a question and make up answers in call and response style.

Just play the original lick and then follow it up with whatever it inspires in you. In reality you will use many of the techniques described above when you do this, but the difference is that you learn to do it spontaneously. Remember to write down the licks you make up this way for future reference.

9. Change Tempo

Here’s a change that has to be included for completeness. It’s a very simple change, and easy to overlook, but often the whole character of a lick will change, not to mention the technical challenge it presents…

Now you know nine ways to make up new blues guitar licks to practice. You can make up a lot of licks if you change only one thing at a time, if you combine two or more changes you’ll create a huge number of new possibilities.

Put these tips into practice to grow your blues guitar lick vocabulary and create personalized licks of your own inspired by those of your heroes. You can apply these techniques to the licks you pick up from books and magazines, or teachers you follow. Multiply the benefits of all these sources by learning how to easily create dozens of new licks from every one that you learn from them.

How many times have you created a blues guitar solo by running through all the scale positions and notes you know? It really isn’t the most effective way to produce an interesting solo.

In blues guitar soloing, less is more; there are only five notes in the pentatonic scale after all, it’s not for nothing.

You can make your life easier and make your blues phrases sound better by reducing the number of notes you include in your phrases. One effective way to do this is to develop the habit of repeating a note.

This is not as easy as it first sounds. Most of us have spent hours of practice learning to do just the opposite. We run from one note to another all the time as we practice scales, box positions and licks. It actually takes some work to get into the habit of staying on the same note from time to time.

You can use this tip to repeat a note anywhere you like in your licks and solos, but I find this technique is especially effective at the end of a phrase. Simply repeat your lick’s target note several times.

First Blues Box Examples

Here are four short example licks using this idea in the first position blues box.

Because they are short they work very well as endings that you can just tack on to the end of a phrase. Try placing them at the end of some of your phrases to hear how they sound.

————-|————-|————-|——————- ————-|————-|————-|——————- -5-5-5——-|-5———–|-5———–|——————- ——-7~~~–|—7-7-7-7~~-|—7-7-7-5~~-|——————- ————-|————-|————-|-5s7-5-5-5-7-7~~~~-
————-|————-|————-|——————- ————-|————-|————-|——————-

Conclusion

These examples show you how easy it can be to use repetition of one note in your licks, only two or three notes is enough to do the job. Experiment with your own ideas around the scale and chord positions you know. You’ll soon get into the habit of repeating yourself and playing better sounding blues guitar solos.

This short lesson shows two essential fretboard patterns you can use to play the blues chord progression in any key.

If you’ve already studied the 12 bar blues progression then you’ll know that it uses three chords known as the I, IV and V chords. You can play these chords in any key by following one of the simple patterns shown below.

To use these patterns you need to know how to play at least one of the following chord types:

* An E7 shape bar chord with its root on the sixth string and an A7 shape bar chord with its root on the fifth string.

* The blues shuffle pattern using two note chords.

These shapes are shown later in the lesson as a reminder, or introduction if you don’t know them yet.

I Chord on the 6th String

Start your blues with a I chord using the E shape with its root on the sixth string. You can play the IV and V chords with the A shape that has its root on the 5th string.

The IV chord’s root is on the 5th string at the same fret as the I chord. The V chord has its root two frets up from this. The relative positions of the chord roots are shown in the diagram below.

I Chord on the 5th String

Alternatively, you can start your blues with an A shape chord. The diagram below shows what the pattern looks like when you start with a fifth string root I chord.

This time the IV and V chords are E shape bar chords with their roots on the 6th string. The IV chord is found two frets back from the I chord and the V chord is at the same fret, right above the I chord root.

The Chord Shapes

Below are diagrams of the sixth and fifth string root chords you can use with these patterns.

You can use the two notes on the lowest two strings of each chord as the starting position for two-note blues shuffle chords.

Use This Knowledge To Play 12 Bar Blues In Any Key

To use these positions to play the 12 bar blues in any key you have to memorize the names of the notes on the 6th and the 5th string of your guitar.

Find the root note for the key you want on either the fifth or the sixth string and then apply one of the patterns above.

This lesson shows you how to play easy two-note tritone blues chords. These chords make it easy for anyone to play blues backup guitar in any key.

In this lesson for beginner blues guitarists you’ll see how to play the 12 bar blues using easy tritone chord shapes with just two fingers. You’ll also learn how to find the tritone positions for the I, IV and V chords in any key.

The best way to see just how easy it can be to play a 12 bar blues with tritones is to try an example. The example below shows a 12 bar blues in A major. Try playing it, then read on to learn what tritones are and learn how to use them in other keys.

Easy Tritone Blues In A

Blues Tritones

I hope you tried the example. It wasn’t hard, was it?

Those easy little two note chords, tritones, use two of the most important notes in a dominant chord: the 3rd and the b7.

The 3rd determines the chord’s major or minor quality. Here the 3rds are all major. The b7 gives the chord its dominant flavour.

All the chords are played without a root. This might sound a little strange when you play them alone, but in a band or jam setting you’ll almost certainly have someone else around to play the root, the bass player for example.

The observant amongst you might notice that the notes come from the E7 bar chord shape on the A chords. On the D and E chords the notes are from the C7 shape.

The 3rd and b7 within these shapes are shown by the red notes in the chord diagrams below.

The great thing is that the three chords – I, IV, V – can be played on adjacent frets. Start by finding where to play the I chord – use the root note of the E bar shape on the 6th string as a guide.

Once you’ve located the I chord the IV and V are easy to find. Move down one fret from the I for the IV chord, move up one fret from the I for the V chord.

Tritones offer you an easy and great sounding way to play 12 bar blues guitar in any key. If you’re struggling to learn bar chords so you can play blues in any key then this trick will give you a great short cut.

Practice tritone blues in as many keys as you can. And then head off to the jam session where you’ll be able to play backup on any song.

A mistake made by many players in their blues guitar solos is to try and cram in too many notes. A listener on the receiving end of a barrage of notes will most likely turn off and not hear what you’re trying to say.

Blues guitar soloing is a bit like speaking. If you spout out a non-stop battery of words when you talk to someone and leave them no space to reflect and integrate what you say then the chances are they will switch off and start wondering how they can extract themselves from the conversation as fast as possible. Similarly a solo crammed full of notes will overwhelm the listener and have a weaker impact.

Here’s Why You Get Into This Trap

The first step to blues guitar soloing for most players is to learn the pentatonic or blues scale and then spend hours of practice to learn how to run up it and down it as fast as possible.

Once you learn how to run up and down the scale at a reasonable speed the next step is usually to try some improvisation. And guess what you do when you start to improvise? You do what you know, run up and down the blues scale as fast as you can.

If you practice with scales a lot you’ll develop the habit of playing all the notes. So, you need to spend some of your practice time on something different. One way is to practice using fewer notes.

Change Your Practice Habits

If the above common learning route leads to bad blues guitar solos, then it is clear that you must practice differently if you want to learn to create interesting solos. One good way to do this is to use what I call the 3 note blues solo.

3 Note Blues Solos

3 note blues solos are a practice tool to get you thinking differently about the scales. There are 3 simple rules:

1. You can play only 3 notes

2. You can play those 3 notes in different scale box positions

3. You can play the notes in different ways, e.g. straight, bend or slide into them, vibrato…

Putting 3 Note Blues Soloing To Work

Make up some licks in advance, write them down if you’re more comfortable with that. When you have a few 3 note licks worked out, put on a jam track, and practice them over the chords.

When you feel ready try to make some more licks up on the fly, after all, the goal is to improvise. You can create new licks by playing an “answer” to your pre-defined licks, or play a pre-defined lick differently – change the timing, adds bends, slides or other effects.

You Are What You Practice

Remember that you are what you practice. If you practice whizzing up and down blues scale boxes as fast as you can then that’s what your solos will sound like.

To create solos with real feeling you must practice differently. The three note solo exercise helps you to get a new perspective on the scales. It will make you think about note choices and learn to create interesting sounds with each note.

Use three note solos as you practice blues improvisation to build better feel and phrasing. Remember, you don’t have to play all the notes of the scale in every solo just to show you know them.

There is a lot of information available on playing blues guitar solos, but where do you start if you’re just beginning? You could spend ages learning and memorizing scales, scale positions, boxes, patterns, bends, slides, hammers and so on. But what you want is to have some fun jammin’ the blues, right?

So to get you off to a quick and simple start, here’s a lesson that shows you a minimal set of notes you can use to start playing beginner blues guitar solos right away.

12 Bar Blues Recap

In this lesson we’ll learn how to play some easy blues guitar solo licks over a blues in E major. Before we look at the licks, let’s make sure you know the E major blues, shown below with the E7, A7 and B7 chords.

/ E7 / E7 / E7 / E7 / A7 / A7 / E7 / E7 / B7 / A7 / E7 / B7 /

To practice blues solos over this progression record yourself as you play it using any chord shape you want.

Beginner Blues Guitar Solo Position

Blues player most commonly use the minor pentatonic scale to play their blues guitar solos. If that all sounds like Greek to you that’s because it is. Penta is Greek for five – the scale has five notes, and tonic is a note. As we’ll see you don’t have to speak any more Greek to use it.

The five notes of the blues scale repeat many times on the guitar fretboard, which can confuse you. To keep things simple in this lesson we’re going to look at just one occurrence of each note, right up near the end of the neck close to the open chord positions you’re probably familiar with.

The fretboard diagram below shows the notes of the E pentatonic scale: the root note E (marked R), the b3 (pronounced flat third), the 4, 5 and finally the b7 (flatted seventh).

1    |---|---|---|---|
2    |---|---|---|---|
3 b3 |---|-4-|---|-5-|
4 b7 |---|-R-|---|---|
5    |---|---|---|---|
6    |---|---|---|---|

Use your index finger to play the R and 4 notes and your ring finger to play the 5. The b3 and b7 are played on the open 3rd and 4th strings.

Example Blues Licks

Now you have some basic blues note positions, but how do you make a solo with them? The answer is, make up licks with the notes and play them one after another.

A lick is a short sequence of notes. You can think of the five pentatonic notes as the letters of your musical alphabet, and licks are like the words or phrases you create by combining these letters. This might sound complicated, but it’s actually really easy because unlike a language like English there are virtually no spelling mistakes in the blues.

The easiest way to get the hang of this is to take a look at some example licks.

We’re going to use guitar tab notation, this presents the six strings of the guitar, lowest string at the bottom, and marks the fret number to play on each string. Read the tab from left to right and play the indicated notes one after another. The beats are marked above the tab lines.

Blues Solo Lick 1

   1  &  2  &  3  &  4  &
1 --------------------------
2 --------------------------
3 -------------------0------
4 ----0--0-h2--0-h2-----2---
5 --------------------------
6 --------------------------

Blues Solo Lick 2

   1  &  2  &  3  &  4  &
1 --------------------------
2 --------------------------
3 -------2--4--2--0---------
4 -2-----------------2~~~~~-
5 --------------------------
6 --------------------------

Blues Solo Lick 3

     1  &  2  &  3  &  4  &
1 --------------------------
2 --------------------------
3 -2h4---2h4---2h4--4-------
4 ---------------------2~~~~
5 --------------------------
6 --------------------------

Put It Together

Practice these licks until you can play them comfortably and in time. Then you can build a solo by stringing them together over the 12 bar blues progression. Once you’ve mastered these make up new licks of your own using the five notes, try any idea you like to discover how it sounds.

That’s it, you’re on your way to becoming a blues guitar player. If you’d like to learn more about playing blues guitar, I recommend this easy to follow beginner blues guitar video lesson.

A great sounding way to play backup guitar on a blues song is by using a riff. A riff is a simple rhythmic motive that can be played in the background all through a 12 bar blues progression. In this lesson we’re going to learn a simple riff and see how it is played over the different chords of a blues progression in E major.

The first figure below presents the basic riff pattern based around an E chord and some notes from the pentatonic major chord. This is a common way to create riffs, mixing a chord with a short single note phrase.

|-0----------------|-0--------------|
|-3--0h2-----------|-3------2-0-----|
|-1------1-0h1-----|-1--0h1---------|
|-2------------2---|-2--------------|
|-2----------------|-2--------------|
|-0----------------|-0--------------|

In the 12 bar blues that follows we are going to take this basic riff and play it on all the chords. As you’ll see the riff is modified slightly when we move the the A (IV) and B (V) chords. Again, this is a very common way of using chord riffs so they support the harmony. The modified riff is based on the same E chord shape played up the neck at the 5th and 7th frets for A and B respectively. You’ll have to use a bar position to play the chords on beat one.

E Riff Blues - click for full size version

You’ll notice that the riff varies slightly in different bars. This helps add some interest but is not absolutely necessary, the same one bar pattern could be used throughout. In bar four the riff is modified to finish on the 2nd fret of the B string instead of the open B. This note is a C which happens to be the major third of the A chord that follows. Notice how this sound sets up the A chord and makes the transition sound better. Try playing the unmodified riff on this bar to hear the difference this small change makes. Keep this trick in mind as you create riffs of your own – use tones from the next chord, the major third, fifth and seventh all work well, to lead in to chord changes a beat or so in advance.

Notice how this trick is used again in bars preceding the changes to E, B, A, and E chords in bars six, eight, nine and ten.

The progression finishes with a little turnaround riff in bars eleven and twelve. You can either play this kind of turnaround riff or just keep going with the usual pattern right through to the end, it just depends on the kind of mood you want to create with your song.

I hope you enjoy this lesson and the riff blues you can learn to play. When you’ve mastered it have a go at making up your own riff blues. Use the tips this lesson has shown you:

1. Start with a blues chord shape on beat one
2. Fill in to the end of the bar with a single note lick of three or four notes
3. Move your riff to the IV and V chord
4. Use the third, fifth and seventh of the next chord to lead into chord changes
   That’s all there is to it. Before you know it you’ll be a master blues backup player able to create interesting riffs from dusk ’till dawn down at your local blues club.

Would you like to learn to play easy blues guitar with only one chord position, without moving all over the fretboard? Well, here’s a lesson that shows you how to play cool sounding 12 bar blues guitar with only one easy beginner chord position.

12 Bar Blues Recap

First up, you need to know the 12 bar blues pattern. If you don’t know it already then let’s take a quick look at the chords normally used to play it. We’ll take a look at an example in the key of E major, a common key for blues guitar songs. The pattern, not surprisingly, contains 12 bars like this.

/ E7 / E7 / E7 / E7 / A7 / A7 / E7 / E7 / B7 / A7 / E7 / B7 /

Now you know what the 12 bar blues looks like let’s see how this pattern can be played with only one chord position.

D7 Chord Position

To play our really easy 12 bar blues we’re going to use the simple D7 chord shape shown in the chord diagram below. This is a chord that any beginner guitar player learns early so shouldn’t be too difficult.

1  |---|-3-|---|
2  |-1-|---|---|
3  |---|-2-|---|
4  |---|---|---|
5  |---|---|---|
6  |---|---|---|

Finger the chord by placing your index finger on the second string at the first fret. Then place your second finger on the third string at the second fret. Finally put your third finger down on the first string at the second fret too.

Notice how your finger tips make a little triangle formation on the bottom three strings? For this easy blues progression you’ll need to strum or pluck only these three bottom strings.

Practice grabbing that chord position to get comfortable with it, then we can move on learn how to play a 12 bar blues with it.

12 Bar Blues In E With D7 Chord Shape

To play the 12 bar blues we’ll take the D7 chord shape and move it up and down over only three frets. We start with the E7 chord which you play by placing the D7 shape two frets higher – your first finger at the base of the triangle should be on the third fret of the second string.

We’re going to make the other two chords of the 12 bar blues – A7 and B7 – really easy to play by using a little trick called a flat fifth chord substitution. You don’t have to worry about what this is or why it works for now, just use and enjoy it.

The A7 chord substitution is played by sliding the E7 chord down just one fret. Your index finger should be on the second fret of the second string. The B7 is played by moving the E7 position up one fret, index finger on the fourth fret of the second string.

Using these chord substitutions has the neat advantage of putting all three chords on adjacent frets, and even better with exactly the same chord shape. All you have to do is move this shape down one fret or up one fret from the starting position on E7, things could hardly be any easier, could they?

Now you can enjoy playing the 12 bar blues progression in the key of E major with this easy blues guitar chord trick.

Blues guitar is a very popular style that many guitar beginners want to learn to play. The blues is fun, sounds great and gives plenty of opportunity to express your creativity. But just what do you need to learn to play blues guitar? In this post we’ll answer that question as we take a look at the different things you need to learn to become a blues guitar player.

In summary the blues guitar skills you need are:

1. Blues chords
2. Blues chord progressions
3. Blues scales
4. Blues guitar techniques
5. Blues riffs and licks
6. Turnarounds
7. Intros and endings
8. Blues rhythm styles
9. Blues songs

Now this might look like an impressive list, but don’t be put off. You don’t have to master everything in one go and you can enjoy exploring all these topics for a long time to come. To get started let’s take a brief look at these elements one by one…

1. Blues Chords

First thing on your blues guitar learning plan should be blues chords. With only a few chords you’ll be able to start playing real blues songs and they’ll provide you with a foundation you can use no matter how far you progress in your blues playing.

The blues uses chords called dominant chords, often known as 7th chords too. Dominant blues chords can be played in many ways including easy open chord positions if you’re a beginner. Later you may progress to play more exotic sounding chords such as dominant 9th, 13th and minor 7th chords.

2. Blues Chord Progressions

The blues chords you learn are put together in standard patterns – called progressions – that are the basis of blues songs. The most common progression used is the 12 bar blues and its variants. You can also learn to play blues in 8 and 16 bars as well as minor blues and maybe some jazzier progressions as you become more advanced. Good knowledge of blues chord progressions will help you easily understand and play many blues songs in different keys.

3. Blues Scales

The most commonly played scales in the blues are the pentatonic minor and pentatonic major scales as well as the blues scale, which is simply an extended pentatonic minor scale. Blues scales are used to play solos, but also come in handy to create short phrases to link chords and make the rhythm playing more interesting and fun.

4. Blues Guitar Techniques

Blues guitar uses some special techniques that are essential to creating a good blues sound with your scales. Hammer-ons and pull-offs, bends, slides and vibrato skills will ensure you deliver the blues effects of your favourite players.

You will practice these skills regularly to develop them and maintain them. Although the basic set of techniques is not very extensive they can be one of the hardest elements of blues guitar to really master. Pro players continue to work on these to hone and perfect them as they are essential to your blues sound.

5. Blues Riffs and Licks

Armed with your knowledge of the blues scales and playing techniques you can start to learn to play the licks and riffs of the blues masters, as well as make up some of your own. Licks and riffs are the building blocks of blues guitar solos and are also widely used to add spice to rhythm playing.

A good vocabulary of popular blues licks and riffs will give your sound a characteristic blues flavour familiar to blues fans everywhere. You should learn as many of these cliche licks as you can and incorporate in your playing. As you begin to understand how they are made you can have endless fun as you make up your own new and original licks and add them to the mix.

6. Turnarounds

At the end of 12 bar blues the turnaround sets up the return to the beginning of the cycle and launches another verse or solo. It’s important to understand how turnarounds work and to build yourself a library of turnaround licks to play.

7. Intros and Endings

Similar to turnaround licks there are many standard styles used to start or finish blues songs. It’s often hard to get a band started and to finish together elegantly and a good knowledge of blues intros and endings will help you fit in with other blues players in a band or jam situation. Mastery of clean intros and endings will set you apart from the crowd of wannabe players – remember first, and last, impressions count.

8. Blues Rhythm Styles

So what will your style be – Chicago, west coast, Texas, delta blues from Mississippi or Louisiana, or maybe uptown funky blues? Or maybe a little of everything?

The blues has a rich history of styles each with their own characteristic elements. You can study different regions, eras and players to learn to reproduce their styles or blend them together into your own unique “you blues” style. With so many styles there’s always something new to discover, which is part of the fun of learning to play blues guitar.

9. Blues Songs

Of course, the ultimate aim of all these blues skills is to play songs. There are numerous standards – the best known blues songs – that you should learn because they will give you a common language to share with other blues musicians. Then of course you will want to learn to play some of your own personal favourite songs and perhaps one day make up some of your own.

Blues songs are rather fluid and often appear in different forms, no two blues players play the same song in exactly the same way. So when you learn blues songs try to get yourself several different recordings and be aware of the different styles the song is played in. Then take the elements you like the most from each and play the song in your own way.

Phew, that makes for quite a lot of things to learn, let’s review what we’ve discussed.

1. Blues chords, the foundation of the blues rhythm sound
2. Blues chord progressions, put the chords together
3. Blues scales, used to create blues licks, riffs and solos
4. Blues guitar techniques, bends, hammers, slides for authentic blues phrasing
5. Blues riffs and licks, the vocabulary of blues soloing
6. Turnarounds, when it’s time to start all over and do it again
7. Intros and endings, get off to a good start and finish with style
8. Blues rhythm styles, for sound rhythm playing
9. Blues songs, put it all together and play the blues!!

Now you know what you need to go and learn if your dream is to play blues guitar. Of course, with so much to learn you can have fun exploring and discovering for a long time to come. But don’t worry if that all seems a bit daunting, you don’t need to master all of these topics in detail to get started.

Here’s a challenge for you if you want to learn. Get yourself a guitar and learn these easy beginner blues chords to get yourself started. Before you know it you’ll be hooked and working your way through this list all the way to number 9.

Here’s a blues guitar solo tip that will help you spice up your blues guitar solos with licks that use notes from the chromatic scale.

Beginner and intermediate blues guitar learners often fall into the trap of simply playing up and down the pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are a great place to start, but your solos can soon feel stale if you are constantly walking up and down those same five notes.

Chromatic notes offer an easy way to start extending your five note vocabulary, breath some new life into your solos and get you moving around the fretboard in new ways.

Chromatic Notes to the Rescue
The chromatic scale is the scale you get when you walk one fret at a time along a guitar string for a distance of twelve frets. This scale contains all the notes available in western music, A through G plus all the flats and sharps in between. The distance of twelve frets, and twelve notes, corresponds to one octave.

You can use the notes of the chromatic scale to fill in your pentatonic scale boxes and give yourself a whole load of extra note options.

Put the Chromatic Scale Into Action
To put this scale into action start with the first pentatonic scale box. The one that starts with the root note on the sixth string. Normally you use the pentatonic notes separated by one or two frets on each string.

To use the chromatic notes simply view the pentatonic box as a set of notes four frets wide across all the strings. You can use any of the notes in that box, but note that the chromatic notes should be used only as stepping stones from one pentatonic note to another. Don’t rest on the in in between notes as they will mostly sound off key.

You can mix the chromatic notes into your licks by using them to walk fret by fret from one pentatonic note to another.

Don’t do this for every note change, moderation is the key, but mix in these one fret walking patterns into your phrases every now and then. Remember, don’t end your licks on the chromatic notes, simply pass through them to finish on a scale tone and things will sound fine.

Once you’re comfortable walking one fret at a time within the scale box you can extend this idea outside of the box. For example, start a phrase by walking up to the root note on the first string from three or four frets below.

Once you get the hang of it you’ll find this technique gives you nice dramatic effects you can use to emphasize parts of your solo. A great way to lead into a solo or a new chorus is with a long walk up the fretboard a half step at a time. Try it, it sounds great.