blues improvising

[guitardmb]

I know most of the scales and know how to use them, and I can get something to sound decent when playing over someone, but what tips and techniques should i use to get licks like Clapton and what not? Or is there a list of commonly used blues riffs that will sound good in a certain scale?

I can improvise over people alright, but I dont know what combination of notes in the scale and at what speed and rhythym to play. Any suggestions?

[zenful]

I know most of the scales and know how to use them, and I can get something to sound decent when playing over someone, but what tips and techniques should i use to get licks like Clapton and what not? Or is there a list of commonly used blues riffs that will sound good in a certain scale?

I can improvise over people alright, but I dont know what combination of notes in the scale and at what speed and rhythym to play. Any suggestions?

learning common licks will certainly help, and is very important to developing, but i found that experimenting is really the best way to go

there are many ways to go about this, but you will need to have something to play over. you can either record yourself, use play-along recordings or simply play along with albums. the important thing is that you work on have good rhythmic accuracy when first starting. explore the scale, but dont try to go outside your limits. first get comfortable playing certain licks and patterns, then move up to something more difficult

and another important thing is to use your ear. dont just wail away on a scale and assume that it sounds good. REALLY listen to what you are doing and you'll be able to find the next step of development much more easily

[Tranman66]

Learn 12-bar. Improvise with it. 12-bar blues is fundamental i think. It will help you a lot.

also, listen to a lot of blues. Keep listening. Feel the rhythm. learn the effects of bends and slides.

and remember to listen to the background. follow the progression

[guitardmb]

So does anyone have a link to tabs of the common licks then?

Thanks i think that helped!

[Tranman66]

Stevie Ray Vaughan 's Texas Flood

[Appfro]

blues scales kick my ass. you basically play Em pentatonic to Emaj blues. it confuses the shit out of me.

[MWR]

blues scales kick my ass. you basically play Em pentatonic to Emaj blues. it confuses the shit out of me.

Think of Blues being a mixture of both major and minor. The Blues scale is: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7. The b3, b5, and b7 are all "blue" notes when played over a major or dominant progression. These are notes that should technically clash but they don't because our ears are accustomed to the sound and, depending on the chord progression, you wouldn't land on the b5 to end a phrase. Blue notes are usually played as passing notes.
In general this means you can use both major and minor pentatonic scales for Major progressions but only minor for minor progressions. It's confusing but you'll get it.
Ultimately the goal is to know the chord progression and improvise around the changes by grabbing notes specific to the chord you're playing over. This is where your more thoughtful "call and response" riffs are. It's fun to just jam with an Em Blues scale over an Em progression but you lines won't be very lyrical.
I usually like to improvise over a two chord progression to work on this kind of thing. It's easy to get lost otherwise. The aim is to have your lines move inside and around the chord that's being played. Try to time it so that you land on the root note of the next chord so your riffs have some resolution. That's obvious enough but hard to do consitstantly while improvising.

[guitardmb]

This is sort of odd question. But wtih writing solos and play improvisation should I still follow proper writing rules and using cadences and what not, or do I not have to worry about that since the chord progression should already satisfy it?

And if I do how do I automatically know what will be good and bad sounding, especially if I am just jamming with someone and I dont know the chords to the song, just the key.

Still, does anyone have like a list of commonly used licks. Preferably moveable.

[Tranman66]

blues scales are minor pentatonics with added blues notes.

it is much easier to play in major pentatonics with added blues notes.

[mlb1399]

MWR is back. You always do a great job of explaining theory.

[zenful]

blues scales kick my ass. you basically play Em pentatonic to Emaj blues. it confuses the shit out of me.

Think of Blues being a mixture of both major and minor. The Blues scale is: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7. The b3, b5, and b7 are all "blue" notes when played over a major or dominant progression. These are notes that should technically clash but they don't because our ears are accustomed to the sound and, depending on the chord progression, you wouldn't land on the b5 to end a phrase. Blue notes are usually played as passing notes.
In general this means you can use both major and minor pentatonic scales for Major progressions but only minor for minor progressions. It's confusing but you'll get it.
Ultimately the goal is to know the chord progression and improvise around the changes by grabbing notes specific to the chord you're playing over. This is where your more thoughtful "call and response" riffs are. It's fun to just jam with an Em Blues scale over an Em progression but you lines won't be very lyrical.
I usually like to improvise over a two chord progression to work on this kind of thing. It's easy to get lost otherwise. The aim is to have your lines move inside and around the chord that's being played. Try to time it so that you land on the root note of the next chord so your riffs have some resolution. That's obvious enough but hard to do consitstantly while improvising.

this is just a technicality, but it seems to make more since to call the tritone a #4 rather than a b5. same note of course, but it always bugs me when scales or chord symbols tell you to add a diminished 5 when there is already a perfect 5. to me, b5 should just be used when talking about diminished qualities in order to avoid confusion with the "blue" note.

[guitardmb]

blues scales kick my ass. you basically play Em pentatonic to Emaj blues. it confuses the shit out of me.

Think of Blues being a mixture of both major and minor. The Blues scale is: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7. The b3, b5, and b7 are all "blue" notes when played over a major or dominant progression. These are notes that should technically clash but they don't because our ears are accustomed to the sound and, depending on the chord progression, you wouldn't land on the b5 to end a phrase. Blue notes are usually played as passing notes.
In general this means you can use both major and minor pentatonic scales for Major progressions but only minor for minor progressions. It's confusing but you'll get it.
Ultimately the goal is to know the chord progression and improvise around the changes by grabbing notes specific to the chord you're playing over. This is where your more thoughtful "call and response" riffs are. It's fun to just jam with an Em Blues scale over an Em progression but you lines won't be very lyrical.
I usually like to improvise over a two chord progression to work on this kind of thing. It's easy to get lost otherwise. The aim is to have your lines move inside and around the chord that's being played. Try to time it so that you land on the root note of the next chord so your riffs have some resolution. That's obvious enough but hard to do consitstantly while improvising.

this is just a technicality, but it seems to make more since to call the tritone a #4 rather than a b5. same note of course, but it always bugs me when scales or chord symbols tell you to add a diminished 5 when there is already a perfect 5. to me, b5 should just be used when talking about diminished qualities in order to avoid confusion with the "blue" note.

What does that have to do with anything?

[MWR]

blues scales kick my ass. you basically play Em pentatonic to Emaj blues. it confuses the shit out of me.

Think of Blues being a mixture of both major and minor. The Blues scale is: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7. The b3, b5, and b7 are all "blue" notes when played over a major or dominant progression. These are notes that should technically clash but they don't because our ears are accustomed to the sound and, depending on the chord progression, you wouldn't land on the b5 to end a phrase. Blue notes are usually played as passing notes.
In general this means you can use both major and minor pentatonic scales for Major progressions but only minor for minor progressions. It's confusing but you'll get it.
Ultimately the goal is to know the chord progression and improvise around the changes by grabbing notes specific to the chord you're playing over. This is where your more thoughtful "call and response" riffs are. It's fun to just jam with an Em Blues scale over an Em progression but your lines won't be very lyrical.
I usually like to improvise over a two chord progression to work on this kind of thing. It's easy to get lost otherwise. The aim is to have your lines move inside and around the chord that's being played. Try to time it so that you land on the root note of the next chord so your riffs have some resolution. That's obvious enough but hard to do consitstantly while improvising.

this is just a technicality, but it seems to make more since to call the tritone a #4 rather than a b5. same note of course, but it always bugs me when scales or chord symbols tell you to add a diminished 5 when there is already a perfect 5. to me, b5 should just be used when talking about diminished qualities in order to avoid confusion with the "blue" note.

But a diminished fifth is a blue note. To call it a #4 would be a misnomer because, compared to the major scale, we're not altering the 4th we're altering the 5th. Also, if you were to think of a diminished 5th as being a #4 without also thinking of the b3 as a #2 and the b7 as a # 6, you're violating a basic rule of scale formulas - never mix sharps and flats. We don't refer to A major as having two sharps and one flat so why do it with the Blues scale?
Obviously this has nothing to do with actually making music but it will help to understand what notes are being altered to create the sound you're hearing. If you start refering to these alterations incorrectly it's confusing and just bad practice.

[MWR]

MWR is back. You always do a great job of explaining theory.

Thanks man. I try.

[zenful]

But a diminished fifth is a blue note. To call it a #4 would be a misnomer because, compared to the major scale, we're not altering the 4th we're altering the 5th. Also, if you were to think of a diminished 5th as being a #4 without also thinking of the b3 as a #2 and the b7 as a # 6, you're violating a basic rule of scale formulas - never mix sharps and flats. We don't refer to A major as having two sharps and one flat so why do it with the Blues scale?

were not altering EITHER note, actually. the blues scale contains both the perfect 4 and perfect 5th, so you are ADDING a note, not altering one thats already in the major or minor scale. it really doesn't matter what you call it in this case, but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

and mixing sharps and flats is perfectly okay when talking about the blues scale because its a SCALE, not a key. what you are talking about refers to key signatures, not scalar patterns. its perfectly exceptable to mix accidental signs when refering to scales. after all, there is no key signature for Blues. if you look at actual notation for blues solos, both the #4 and b5 will be used (depening on direction of the line), but when talking about the scale outside of the actual musical context, it makes more sense to me to call it a #4 in order to avoid confusion with diminished qualities

another example of a scale that has to use both sharps and flats is the harmonic minor. if you were forced to use only flats or sharps when talking about this scale, you'd end up leaving certain intervals out and having just plain weird ones like b1!