PLAYING TIPS

[Bars 72-86] Here, we go straight into an ‘enhanced’ octave shape, adding the 5th (Bb) below both octave notes. This becomes a recurring shape in the remaining soloing and it ’s a great, powerful one with which to create riffs around which to solo. I recommend using first and four th fingers to barre third/four th and first/second strings respectively. In this passage, Wes whips out some speedy phrases with lots of position changes, so make sure you take your time, allowing yourself to ‘program’ in some good fingerings and muting habits along the way. Bar 81 sees another great motif, which is repeated three times, as a call, and then mirrored on a different par t of the scale, as a response, in bar 84. This section finishes with a classic blues phrase in bar 85, repeatedly sliding up to the 5th (Bb) and then continuing to bring the ‘blue’ note into play (b5, A) in a tast y sequential lick in bar 88.