quick tricks
Essential tips for blues soloists
Choose a suitable amp type
Blues and classic rock vary from clean tones to fairly well overdriven with plenty of midrange and not too much bass. This is partly down to the equipment that was available back in the late 60s through to the mid 70s, as well as what was stylistically popular at the time. For a rock tone opt for a British Marshall stack – any digital modeling amp will have a suitable tone. For clean sounds a Fender Twin Reverb model is a good bluesy choice.
Scale-wise, it’s a no brainer…
Many solos and almost as many riffs from the genre rely heavily on the minor pentatonic scale and its closely related cousin, the blues scale. The blues scale simply adds a b 5th interval to the minor pentatonic, so Bb Db G blues scale becomes: G C D F. It’s by no means confined to ‘old-style’ music either – these are two of the most commonly used scales in rock.
Use powerchords for an easy jam
Powerchords contain just two notes: a root note and a 5th – that’s the fifth note of the major scale. These chords sound ultra-steady which allows you to jam over the top with almost any scale that shares the same root note. By using powerchords in the backing music the soloist gets to choose the colourful notes.
Get the right drive tone
In the late 60s, fuzz-style distortion pedals were the latest thing, often with misleading names like Tone Bender and Big Muff. These pedals gave quite a different sound to the natural valve amp overdrive – they sound much, er, fuzzier. Jimi Hendrix’s Foxey Lady and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones are classic examples. Again, digital modelling amps and effects will have a suitable patch.
Learn the I-IV-V progression
You may already know the staple blues I-IV-V chord progression – following A-D-E chords in the key of A for example. A good step to improve your blues and rock lead is to learn the minor pentatonic scale for each chord, ie, the A, D and E minor pentatonic scales. This gives you a bigger arsenal of licks to try out as the chords change, rather than sticking to the root position A minor pentatonic scale throughout.