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Learn One Simple Trick That All Blues Guitar Legends Use

By Mike Hayes | June 30, 2010

Almost every guitar player learns a few scales, bends a bunch of
strings, buys a distortion pedal and dreams of that seemingly
unattainable magic sound their heroes get on their guitars.

What is it with these blues legends? What is it that they know
or do that other guitarists don’t?

It can’t be their guitars – heaps of guitar players play the
exact same type of guitars that their heroes play and they sure
don’t get the same sound.

It can’t be theoretical knowledge - actually the blues players
only use very basic musical resources just the basic scales most
guitarists learn at school e.g., the minor pentatonic and blues
scales.

It can’t be their amps and effect pedals – the best blues players
don’t rely on elaborate electronic enhancement for their sound;
for them it’s all about the feel therefore they use only the most
basic guitar and amp setups and very rarely do they ever use
effect pedals.

The legendary blues players go for raw emotion, you gotta play
from the heart and get your guitar singing, that’s how you
really play the blues …there’s nothing fancy about it but you
do have to learn the blues guitar tricks.

What the top blues players know is … less is more! The trick is
to be able to say more with any one note than most other players
can say with a dozen!

Here’s how they squeeze the most juice of one single note.

By playing unisons … a unison is simply the same note repeated
on an adjacent string, For example: Play the G on the 1st string
at the third fret, then play the same note (G) on the second
string at the eighth fret.

Unison G

–3—-
—–8-
——-
——-
——-
——-

Play these notes together or alternate them. Try playing the G
(on the first string) then slide or bend into the other G on the
second string. Usually sliding or bending from two frets below
your target note.

Here is a list of some unison options for the notes in the G
blues scale. In the following list the letter is the name of the
note, the first number is the string, the second number refers to
the fret.

Here’s how the code works: G/1/3 refers to the note G played on
the first string at the third fret.

G/1/3 = G/2/8 = G/3/12

Bb/1/6 = Bb/2/11 = Bb/3/15

D/2/3 = D/3/7 = D/4/12

F/2/6 = F/3/10 = F/4/15

C/3/5 = C/4/10 = C/5/15

Unisons can be playing on any note of the blues patterns
(scales). On the second string the unison note is found on the
third string, etc. Of course any scale can be used to practice
unisons. Try finding these unisons and working them into your
solos.

Topics: Blues Scales, Guitar Tips | No Comments »

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