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Blues Soloing Tricks: Livening Up the Pentatonic Box

4/9/2016

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blues soloing tricks
The Minor Pentatonic Box 1 was probably one of the first things you learned when you started improvising on guitar, and it’s probably the most used shape/pattern in rock and blues improvisation. It feels like home, it’s a safe, controllable place that can provide a sturdy backbone to our blues and rock soloing, but it can get a little stale if you don’t make an effort to liven it up once in a while. In a previous blog post we looked at how to always land on the right note in this pentatonic box; in this one we’ll look at another easy-to-implement soloing trick that will breathe new life into a well-worn pattern.

Here’s the most famous scale pattern on earth (E minor pentatonic):
e minor pentatonic guitar
As you probably know, over a 12 bar blues you can pretty much blow over it with this scale pattern, throwing in the flat 5, and some tasty bends to the major third here and there.

What you can also do is take the chords from the progression (E7, A7 and B7), and wail on those. A lot of players tend to overlook this as you don’t usually play barre-type chords up at the twelfth fret and beyond but they’re there, and within easy reach of our scale pattern.

Here’s an E7 chord superimposed over the pattern:
blues guitar soloing
As you can see, we’re only really adding one note to the scale, but don’t play these chords in scalar fashion, use them as double stops, play two notes off of each other, or chug on them Chuck Berry style.

Here’s the A7 chord superimposed over the pattern:
blues guitar soloing
In this one you might just want to use the top three notes of the chord to help with fingering. Remember to superimpose these chords as the chords change for a greater effect.

Here’s the B7 chord superimposed over the pattern:
blues guitar soloing
Again, you might want to just use the top three notes of this superimposed chord to bring out the Chuck Berry type stuff.

A Little Theory

What’s really going on here is that you’re adding the major third to the scale, which creates a different sound that it would if you bent up to it from the minor third, or used it as a passing tone.

Once you can locate the chords within the pattern well, whip on your favorite backing track and try them out.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU:

-Blues Soloing Tricks: How to Always Land on the Right Notes
-Blues Soloing Tricks: Other Scales to Use in a Blues
-Blues Soloing Tricks: How Not to Run Out of Ideas


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  • Home
  • Blog
  • Tutorials
    • Horizontal Scales Method
    • Altered Tunings Guides
    • Scales Tutorial
  • Guitar Books
    • All Guitar Books
    • Fourths Tuning Chords and Inversions
    • Fourths Tuning Scales and Arpeggios
    • From Scales to Solos - Zonal Improvisation on Guitar
    • The 2 Position Guitar Scale System - Scales and Arpeggios
    • Hacking the CAGED System >
      • Hacking the CAGED System Book 2
    • Modes and How to Use Them
    • Simple Chord Tone Soloing System eBook
    • 50 Guitar Hacks for the Thinking Man's Guitarist
    • 50 More Guitar Hacks for the Thinking Man's Guitarist
    • 50 Guitar Hacks for the Advancing Guitarist
    • Guitar Hacks: Triads and Inversions
    • Melodic Soloing in 10 Days
    • How to Play Like Allan Holdsworth
    • 7 String Guitar Method
    • Shred Guitar Mechanics: Fretboard Dexterity through 4NPS Scales
    • Soloing without Scales
    • Let Go of What You Know - How to Improvise Freely on Guitar
    • Como Aprender Escalas de Guitarra
    • Absolute Pitch Method
  • Fourths Tuning Blog
  • Free Stuff
    • Free Guitar Hacks eBook
    • Free 3NPS Scales eBook
    • Free Pentatonics eBook
    • Free Exotic Scales and Modes eBook
    • Free Online Guitar Courses
  • Contact Us
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