Basic Blues Licks 3: Introduction

Christopher will show you how to expand a basic blues lick that forms the foundation of blues soloing vocabulary. This lick includes the following characteristics of blues lead playing: using the blues scale (minor pentatonic scale with flat 5th "blue note"), triplet swing phrasing, dynamics and articulations like sliding and bending. This is essentially a primer on playing single note melody lines in a blues style to start building a repertoire of blues licks.

We'll start with one simple foundation lick then build on it. All these licks are very simple basic licks that you've heard a million times in any given blues tune. All these licks are generic enough to fit over all the changes of the blues.

To add some variety, we'll play a different note at the end of the lick each time to target the chord changes that happen in our stereotypical 12 bar blues form. When the A (I - one chord) happens, we'll end the lick on the note A. When the D (IV - four chord) happens, we'll end the lick on the note D. Finally, when the E (V - five chord) happens, we'll end the lick on the note E.

Another added ingredient in this series 3 is that we'll play the lick in different octaves and positions in addition to targeting chord tones to provide some variation to our basic lick.

Each lick will be covered in detail and played along with a backing track at a slower tempo and a faster tempo.

Take your time and have fun!