« | Home | »

How To Play A Smokin’ Blues Solo With Just One Note (it’s fun and easy)

By Mike Hayes | July 6, 2010

What’s the first thing I need if I want to play blues guitar? A
cool looking blues guitar, maybe a Gibson ES-355 just like B.B.
King’s or how about I get a really neat blues guitarist’s name;
it has to be something like Blind Lemon … or Rev … I know
I’ll call myself “the Rev. Blind Pineapple Jefferson”, yeah
that’s got a nice blues ring to it!

Actually, as funny as all that sounds I know quite a few
guitarists who put more time and effort into stuff like that than
actually working on their craft and playing authentic blues is
most definitely a craft.

Before we move on let’s sum up what we know about how NOT to play
the blues on guitar:

(a) 25% of guitarists think all they need is a cool blues guitar
and/or a really hip name

(b) 70% are busy playing the blues scale flat out all over the
fretboard as fast as possible

That leaves us with only 5% who actually DO know how to speak the
blues language on guitar.

Let’s see how this 5% approach blues solos on guitar.

Blues fact 1: It’s not what you play it’s how you play it!

Blues fact 2: It’s not what you play in a solo it’s what you
leave out!

Blues fact 3: It’s about playing from the heart not from the
intellect (right brain stuff, too much left thinking and your
playing will sound cold!)

The most important aspect of playing the blues is the rhythm,
remember music is ‘pitch in time’; therefore it’s the space(s) in
between each note or phrase is what creates interesting, powerful
music that communicates.

It’s this very human element we want to incorporate into our
blues guitar playing so let’s begin …

Blues solo step 1: Tap your foot work and concentrate on
developing a comfortable tempo or groove.

Blues solo step 2: Choose a key for your blues – I’m going to
play in the key of ‘E’ a popular blues key for guitarists.

Blues solo step 3: Select ONE note from the blues scale
pertaining to the key you have chosen.

I choose the key of ‘E’ therefore I’ll need to select a note from
the E Blues scale

E blues scale: E – G – A – Bb – B – D – E

I’m going with the note ‘E’, the note ‘B’ is also a good note for
this type of one note solo exercise; all the notes in the scale
will work, however the ‘Bb’ is not the best choice for a newbie
player.

Blues solo step 4: Create a rhythmic pattern or motif from a
thematic ’speech’ phrase – this sounds technical but what it
really means is: think of a short phrase based on a theme and use
the rhythm of the words in the phrase as the basis for your blues
solo.

My theme will be ‘animals’ and my phrase is “cat, rab-bit, cat
rab-bit”

Blues solo step 5: Select a harmonic background for your blues;
I’m going to use this typical 12 bar blues chord progression.

E /// |E /// | E /// | E /// |
A /// |A /// | E /// | E /// |
B /// |B /// | E /// | E /// |

Now that we have all the musical elements let’s create our solo:

(a) Tap your foot and sing your phrase as you tap your foot.

Count in: 1234 [1]

(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1

My solo worked out like this: count in of 1234 ; then the 12 bar
blues chord progression would begin on beat 1, indicated as [1];
I then played my one note ‘E’s’ as follows …

“cat”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“rab-”
——–
–5—-
——–
——–
——–
——–

“-bit”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“cat”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“rab-”
——–
–5—-
——–
——–
——–
——–

“-bit”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

Notice how I didn’t just play the same ‘E’ every time, even
though I restricted myself to one note I could create variety and
surprise by playing the exact same note on different strings.

It’s fun to do this as you can play the note ‘E’ all over the
guitar in different octaves using various guitar techniques such
as slide, hammer-on’s, vibrato, bends etc.

Most importantly you have an original blues solo that really
grooves, I do hope you have fun making up your very own smokin’
blues solos using some of these wacky ideas, the great news is
they really work!

Topics: Guitar Tips, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.