Blues Soloing Guitar for Beginners 1

Learn Blues Scale, Licks, Techniques and How To Solo

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

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Blues Soloing Guitar for Beginners 1

About this course

The key to success when learning any style of music is having a strong foundation to build upon, which is the way most pro musicians learned to play when they were just starting out.

This first module of Jeff McErlain’s Blues Soloing for Beginners is designed to help you build that solid foundation and get you up and running quickly.

”Learning just one scale, a basic vocabulary of blues licks, and a few essential techniques are the fundamental building blocks you’ll need to start start soloing over a blues. You don’t need to learn theory, struggle through tedious exercises, or read music.

I’ll show you the single most important blues scale — the minor pentatonic. This simple, easy-to-learn 5-note scale has powered literally thousands of blues solos. We’ll work on the key blues soloing techniques including bending, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Using the pentatonic scale and these key techniques we’ll start building your vocabulary of blues licks, which you’ll learn how to connect and construct solos with.

What makes this course really special is how you’ll learn these fundamental building blocks for soloing -- we’ll practice everything together!”


Each lesson begins with an overview and demonstration. You’ll practice together with Jeff using a slow playalong, and then you’ll play over a blues backing track for real-world musical context.

In the last section of the course, Jeff will touch on how to improvise your solos. You’ll play together with Jeff, over full-length blues backing tracks, trading solos back and forth to practice everything you worked on in the course.

You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the lessons. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson.

You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.

Grab your guitar and let’s learn how to solo with Jeff McErlain!

Jeff McErlain's Preferred Gear

Below is a list of Jeff McErlain's preferred gear including guitars, amps, pedals, accessories, and more. What you see in Jeff's lessons may or may not be this actual gear, but if you are trying to capture Jeff's sound and tone, the gear listed below is recommended by Jeff and it's a great place to start!

Guitars

Amps

Pedals

Accessories & More

What you'll learn

  • Apply vibrato to sustain notes and add expression
  • Start phrases with an up-pick for better string access and tone
  • Curve third finger to avoid muting adjacent strings
  • Apply repeated lick phrasing over backing tracks
  • Incorporate this lick into improvised solos
Release date: 12/20/2021 • 3h 02m runtime
Start Course
Sample lessons
The Language of a Solo
The Language of a Solo
Essential Concepts: Demo
Picking Technique
Picking Technique
Essential Techniques: Demo
Root Position Am Lick 3
Root Position Am Lick 3
Lesson Demonstration
Root Position Am Lick 3
Root Position Am Lick 3
Playalong: Slow

What's included

56 lessons • 33 charts • 3 Jam Tracks

Blues Soloing for Beginners: 1
Hey I'm Jeff McErlain. Welcome to Blues Soloing for Beginners.

The key to success when learning any style of music is having a strong foundation to build upon, which is the way most pro musicians, including myself, learned when we were just starting out.

Learning just one scale, a basic vocabulary of blues licks, and a few essential techniques are the fundamental building blocks of your foundation — and all you really need to start soloing over a blues.

You don't need to learn theory, struggle through tedious exercises, or read music to get up and running quickly.

I’ll show you the single most important blues scale — the minor pentatonic. This simple, easy-to-learn 5-note scale has powered literally thousands of blues solos.

We'll work on the key blues soloing techniques including bending, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Using the pentatonic scale and these key techniques we'll start building your vocabulary of blues licks, and I'll show you how to connect them to construct your solos.

In the last section of the course, we'll touch on how to improvise your solos. We'll play together over blues backing tracks trading solos back and forth to practice everything we worked on in the course.

What makes this course really special is how you'll learn these fundamental building blocks for soloing and we'll practice everything together!

Each lesson begins with an overview and demonstration. We’ll then practice together using a slow play along, and then we'll solo over a blues backing track for real-world musical context. Plus, using TrueFire’s learning tools, you can loop, slow down or sync the tab to any of the video lessons to learn at your own pace.

Ready to start soloing? Grab your guitar and let’s get started.
What is a Blues?
In this lesson I'm going to talk a bit about exactly what a Blues is then I'm going to play through some tunes to help you better understand the dynamics of playing a Blues.
The Language of a Solo
Music is a language, this may sound like a cliche but it's true! In this lesson I'm going to show you some of the essential concepts to help you learn short musical phrases that build up to longer "musical sentences".
Blues Tone Tips
We all fall victim to the notion that you must have the best gear to get the best tones, I'm not immune to this myself, but in this video I'm going to show you a few tips to get the best Blues tone with any electric guitar.
The A Minor Pentatonic Scale
The scale that's synonymous with the Blues is the Pentatonic scale, now in my experience a lot of people tend to freak out when talking about scales but in this lesson I'm going to show you why there's nothing to fear!
Root Position Phrase
In this next series of lessons we're going to tackle our first root position. First I'll play through it slowly then we'll go through a performance where you can play along with me!
Root Position Phrase
In this next series of lessons we're going to tackle our first root position. First I'll play through it slowly then we'll go through a performance where you can play along with me!

+ 49 more lessons

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Reviews

30 results

Cdnmnt

Verified buyer

06/22/26

Great teacher and Player. Hope he does a part 2

Having worked through his two part blues rhythm guitar course, I bought this and have learned a lot and enjoyed taking it. He is relaxed and has an easy going style but at the same time is precise and explains what he is doing and how he gets there so you don't have to keep going back to figure out what he is doing

Mario2

Verified buyer

05/27/26

Good choice 👌

Another great course from Jeff. The exercises helps you to feel you are progressing and moving forward

dawc2017

Verified buyer

01/09/26

i havnt finished it yet but so far i like it

Glynn1

Verified buyer

08/25/25

Soloing

Good it you want to learn soloing.

Bluesman74

Verified buyer

08/13/25

I like the course and the videos are well made. I would just appreciate having the option for a Czech translation, because I don’t fully understand everything.

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