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Bernie Marsden tackles a minor blues in the first instalment of a two-part video lesson.
WE WERE LUCKY to have a few minutes with guitar legend Bernie Marsden recently. Bernie is probably best known for his work with Whitesnake, and his rich, blues-orientated style has won favour with many guitar fans around the world. When we caught up with Bernie, he was kind enough to play two solos for us: one over a minor blues backing track, and the other in a major key.
Both of these performances have been transcribed and then analysed from a technique and music-theory point view. In part one, we’re going to look at the minor blues. The chord progression used in Bernie’s minor blues is constructed from chords Im, IVm and Vm of the harmonised A Natural Minor scale. The Natural Minor has the following intervallic structure: Root, 2nd, b3rd, 4th, 5th, b6th, b7th. If we harmonise the scale in 3rds we get the following chords: Am7, Bm7b5, Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7.
As you see, the chords are Am7, Dm7 and Em7, giving us the classic minor-blues chords in every guitarist’s favourite key, A minor.
Bernie’s rich, bluesorientated style has won favour with many guitar fans around the world.
From a soloing point of view, the A Minor Pentatonic scale (A C D E G) is a solid ‘home base’. Many of Bernie’s phrases have this scale at their core. The other ‘flavour’ tones come from A Natural Minor scale (A B C D E F G) which can be viewed as A Minor Pentatonic with an added 2nd/9th (B) and b6th (F). The b6th (F) is particularly useful over the IVm chord (Dm7), as the F note is the b3rd of Dm7. This b3rd interval is very descriptive of the chord’s tonality, and a nice thing to include.
Bernie uses a few core techniques and articulations to help the phrases come to life. The piece starts with some volume swells often referred to as ‘violining’. Bernie also adds string bending, hammer-ons, pull-offs, finger slides and finger vibrato, which are all used to taste and are standard blues fare. String bending is a great way to add feel to lead guitar playing. Once the string is bent to pitch, Bernie often adds finger vibrato to help with the intonation, and this adds further interest and expression.
One of the key aspects of this solo is the use of space and pacing. Bernie never gets carried away with long phrases or lots of notes. Everything is placed in a considered fashion, and the emphasis is always on the melody.
It’s well worth refreshing yourself with the five A Minor Pentatonic shapes (Examples 1-5). These patterns are the foundation of this solo and knowing them well, will help you to unlock the neck and appreciate the nuts and bolts of the phrases, and help you work out when and where Bernie is adding extra flavour tones in. For this solo, they are either major 2nd (B) or the minor 6th (F).
The notation contains all of the fingerings, articulations and phrasing from the video. Don’t be intimidated by the look of the notation – it seems complicated due to the tempo and time signature, but the ideas are all straightforward.
Hopefully, there will be a new lick or phrase in here for you. If you find one you like, memorise it and use it in future solos. Once you’ve mastered some of the concepts in Bernie’s solo, try creating a solo of your own over the same backing track as Bernie used.