Blues For Today

THIS ISSUE WE FOCUS on how the blues lives on in today’s music, with the torch being carried by players such as Gary Clark Jr, whose track When My Train Pulls In was one of the main inspirations behind my solo. It’s not too hard to trace the blues lineage, with the riff-based beginning including some open strings for a particularly old-school/John Lee Hooker feel, leading to some melodic pentatonic phrasing.

A notable feature here is the inclusion of notes from outside the usual pentatonic remit, something Gary is very fond of doing.

Adding in the 9th (from the major or minor scale; it’s the same note) is a really effective way of adding some melody and drama, with a comparatively low risk of ‘playing yourself into a corner’, or sounding just plain wrong! In any case, the old jazz maxim of only ever being a semitone away from the right note is worth remembering here if you find yourself in difficulties.

I’ve used some of the pentatonic shapes, albeit in a less obvious way – the opening bars being pretty clearly shape 1 in the key of E minor, but around four bars in, shape 2 also starts to feature. I’ve also used a few ringing open strings and slides to hint at the A minor pentatonic but you’ll notice this isn’t a ‘pure’A minor pentatonic; check out the transcription for more info. Next, we morph into a shape 4 E minor pentatonic then take advantage of the B minor pentatonic (shape 1) in the same position. We finish with a series of pentatonic shapes/phrases connected by sides.

The objective is not necessarily to be hyper-aware of what scale/position you are using while playing but to absorb the patterns into the subconscious on a longterm basis. Hope you enjoy and see you next time!