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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1. Keep it simple

It’s easy to spend hours… months… even years in a constant quest for fancy new tricks, scales, and licks full of notes, but what really makes the best blues phrases is simplicity.

Not that you can’t use anything special, or learn new things, but don’t ignore the basics. Learn how to choose the right note in the right context and your phrases will be effective without fancy tricks.

2. Use repetition and sequencing

If a thing’s worth saying, it’s worth saying twice. If you come up with a neat lick, repeat it. Repetition increases tension (up to a point) and helps sign post your solo for the audience.

You can sequence your lick for added effect. This simply means repeating it from a different starting note, e.g. an octave or two higher or lower.

3. Use dynamics and space

One easy way to add interest to your licks is to work the dynamics – how loud or soft you play. If you play everything at the same level then your solo will sound monotone. Just like when speaking, inject enthusiasm, fear, anger or other emotions into your licks by varying the intensity of your playing.

Remember too that nobody likes to listen to someone who talks non-stop. Leave some silent spaces in your solos.

4. Target chord tones

The best blues guitar solos capture the movementof the chords. Devise your licks to finish on the characteristic notes of each chord of the blues progression, the root, third and seventh notes are good candidates. Accentuate the chord changes by using these notes to lead into each change.

5. Use the melody

If you base your licks and solo on the melody you will often address most of the other points above. This doesn’t mean you have to simply copy the melody note for note, but weave phrases of your own with those of the melody and take melody phrases and alter them by playing with the other ideas suggested in this list.

Work on these five tips as part of your blues guitar solo practice and improve your solos. I suggest choosing one tip at a time and working on it until it becomes an integrated part of your playing. Then move on to the next and repeat the process.

The lesson is in two parts. The first video shows the solo played at normal speed so you can hear how it sounds. The second video explains how to play the solo step by step.

If you are struggling to learn to play blues guitar solos then this is a lesson for you. I spent ages learning scales and positions to create blues guitar solos. But somehow, despite learning more positions, more notes, my solos didn’t sound right, hey didn’t sound blues enough to me.

This lesson opened my eyes to the fact that it’s not about how many notes or scale boxes you can play. A great blues guitar solo can be created with only a few notes.

If this lesson helped you then you will find plenty more excellent instruction in Griff Hamlin’s Blues Guitar Unleashed course. It’s a complete blues guitar course for players with a little experience who want to learn to play blues guitar. Griff’s excellent instruction will take you from fumbling blues wannabe to rockin’ and confident blues master. You can learn more about the course, and get some more free blues instruction videos from Griff by visiting Blues Guitar Unleashed.

Blues chord progressions most often use dominant chords which are a standard major chord with an added flatted 7th note, this note is found two frets below the chord’s root. Twelve bar blues chord progressions use three dominant chords, these are the I, IV and V chords of the song’s key. Here are some examples.

• In the key of E the I, IV, V chords are E, A, B.
• In the key of A the I, IV, V chords are A, D, E.
• In the key of G the I, IV, V chords are G, C, D.

Dominant chords can often be played on the guitar by removing one finger that plays the root note of the chord to play the dominant 7th note two frets below it. You can see this in the E7 and A7 chord shapes below.

E7 and A7 chord diagrams

Get the idea? Good, now let’s take a look at the 12 bar blues progression using those chords. Below is the chord grid.

12 Bar Blues in E Major

You can see that the progression starts with four bars of the I chord, in this example E7. This is followed by two bars of the IV chord, A7, then another two bars on the I, E7. The last four bars are referred to as the turnaround and use one bar on the V chord, one bar on the IV and finally two bars on the I chord.

The progression then starts back at the I chord in the first of the twelve bars again. It’s easy to see where the progression gets its name, it has 12 bars which are repeated for the length of a song.

The 12 bar blues progression is the foundation of countless blues songs. You will easily learn to recognize it if you listen to plenty of blues songs and pay attention to the sound of the chords as they go by.

There are two very common variations to the basic 12 bar form that we’re going to take a short look at here. You should learn these two variations to play more popular blues songs or if you want to participate in blues jams with other musicians.

The first variation involves a change in bar two of the 12 bar blues, you play the IV chord in place of the I chord to give the progression shown below.

12 Bar Blues Variant 1

The second variation replaces the I chord in the twelfth bar with a V chord. Play this variation and I’m sure you’ll instantly recognize it. It is a characteristic blues sound you have heard in countless blues performances, it relaunches the song into the next round of 12 bars.

12 Bar Blues Variant 2

Now you’ve learned the two variations separately, you should also practice playing the 12 bar blues progression with both variations: play the IV chord in bar two and the five chord in bar twelve. That gives you four 12 bar blues chord progressions to practice, let’s recap them here:

1. The basic 12 bar blues progression
2. IV chord in bar 2 variation
3. V chord in bar 12 variation
4. IV and V chord variation

Learn and memorize these four 12 bar blues progressions on your guitar and you will be well on your way to playing blues rhythm guitar. Learn and practice the progressions in as many keys as you can and you’ll be amazed how many blues songs you can play. Time to pick up your guitar and start practicing…

Blues guitar is great fun to play and is the basis of musical styles like rock, soul, R&b, funk and jazz. Learning to play the blues gives you valuable skills that will help you learn many other styles.

Yet the heart of the blues can be learned with only the few simple chords and the basic blues song structure shown in this lesson. Ready? OK, let’s take those first steps towards playing thousands of blues songs…

Blues Chords

Blues guitar uses distinctive sounding chords called dominant 7th chords. These are denoted by the number 7 following the chord name, e.g. E7 denotes a dominant 7th E chord.

The dominant 7th chord is simply a normal major or minor chord with a 7th note two frets below the root note added. For example, you add a D note to an E major chord to form an E7, a G note to an A chord gives you A7, and so on.

You can add the 7th note to many chord positions by finding the root note and changing the fingering to play the note two frets below it. The chord diagrams below show you easy open blues chords in the key of A major.

E7            A7                D7
e 0|---|---|  0|---|---|---|    |---|-3-|
B 0|---|---|   |---|-2-|---|    |-1-|---|
G  |-1-|---|  0|---|---|---|    |---|-2-|
D 0|---|---|   |---|-1-|---|   0|---|---|
A  |---|-2-|  0|---|---|---|   x|---|---|
E 0|---|---|  x|---|---|---|   x|---|---|

You can try to find the dominant 7th note for other open chords you know. Simply find a string where the root note occurs and change fingering to play the note two frets lower on that string. Remember that the root note occurs two or even three times in open chord forms.

Alternatively, you can find a string where the 5th note of the chord occurs and play the note three frets up from it.

Now you know how to play simple blues chords in open positions let’s look at how they are used in songs.

12 Bar Blues Progression

Most blues songs use a 12 bar chord progression that is quite easy to learn. Once you master this progression you’ll be able to play about 90% of blues songs with it.

The blues progression uses chords based on the first, fourth and fifth scale degrees. These are commonly known as the I, IV and V chords. Here is the 12 bar blues progression in the key of A major, the I, IV, V chords are A7, D7 and E7 respectively.

|  A7  |  X  |  X  |  X  |  D7  |  X  |
|  A7  |  X  | E7  | D7  |  A7  | E7  |

As you learn and memorize this progression you should aim to memorize the chord changes in terms of I, IV and V chords. If you do this then it will be easy to play the blues in a variety of keys.

You can play the blues in four popular keys – A, E, D and G – with only five chords. The table below shows the I, IV and V chords for these four major keys commonly played on the guitar.

Key of E: E7 (I), A7 (IV), B7 (V)
Key of A: A7 (I), D7 (IV), E7 (V)
Key of D: D7 (I), G7 (IV), A7 (V)
Key of G: G7 (I), C7 (IV), D7 (V)

Practice the chord forms one key at a time and memorize the 12 bar blues progression. With these two simple pieces of knowledge you can have fun playing along to many blues songs or join in at your local blues jam.