Slow Blues Guru

Key Techniques and Creative Approaches for Slow Blues Soloing

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

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Slow Blues Guru

About this course

One of the most challenging skills for blues players is soloing over a slow blues. Not only do you need the technical chops and a solid understanding of the underlying harmony, you also need to be able to tell a story with expressive phrasing, dynamics, and emotion.

Ready to get your own your slow blues chops up to speed? Play your way through the 10 performance studies in Corey Congilio’s Slow Blues Guru and you’ll be well on your way to guru status yourself.

”Legendary guitarists like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mike Bloomfield, Jimi Hendrix and Gary Moore are all gurus of slow blues. In this Slow Blues Guru course, I’ll guide you through 10 performance studies designed to help you develop the skills you’ll need to  become a guru of the slow blues as well.”

Corey organized the course into 10 Slow Blues performance studies. Each study focuses on a specific slow blues approach. Corey will first perform the solo and then break it down note-for-note explaining the underlying technical and harmonic approaches.

You’ll work on slow Texas Blues-style solos with tons bends and vibrato, slow blues solos that combine major and minor pentatonic sounds with double stops, slow down-home blues with lots of open string playing, and slow blues solos taking maximum advantage of the sixth interval.

You’ll learn how to artfully outline chord changes, play in 12/8, 6/8, as well as 4/4, tackle a signature jazz standard progression with a gritty soulful approach, and how to solo over a laid back R&B ballad. And finally you’ll pull out all the stops and play a hard rock inspired solo full of aggressive lines and phrases.

All of the performance studies are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop and/or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, Corey includes all of the backing tracks for you to work with on your own.

Grab your guitar and let’s play some slow blues with Corey Congilio!

Corey Congilio's Preferred Gear

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

Guitars

Amps

Pedals

Accessories & More

What you'll learn

  • Navigate between different scale positions and octaves smoothly
  • Target chord tones while soloing over chord changes
  • Create dynamic contrast and storytelling in solo construction
  • Learn to tell a story with phrasing, dynamics, and emotion
  • Develop technical and expressive skills for slow blues soloing
Release date: 12/14/2017 • 2h 17m runtime
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Sample lessons
Someday Kinda Blues
Someday Kinda Blues
Performance
At Night
At Night
Overview
At Night
At Night
Performance
At Night
At Night
Breakdown

What's included

32 lessons • 10 charts • 10 Jam Tracks

Slow Blues Guru
Hello, I'm Corey Congilio, and welcome to Slow Blues Guru. One of the most challenging skills for blues players is soloing over a slow blues. Not only do you need the technical chops and a solid understanding of the underlying harmony, you also need to be able to tell a story with expressive phrasing, dynamics, and emotion.

Legendary guitarists like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mike Bloomfield, Jimi Hendrix and Gary Moore are all gurus of slow blues. In this Slow Blues Guru course, we'll work through 10 performance studies designed to help you develop all of the skills you'll need to become a guru of the slow blues as well.

I'll break down each solo for you note for note, you'll get tab and notation, AND you'll get all of the rhythm tracks to work with as well. You can also loop and slow down any of the performances so that you can work with the materials at your own pace. So, grab your guitar and let's get started!
Tears from Above
"Tears From Above" is a Texas blues inspired solo with plenty of nods to Stevie Ray Vaughan. As with all ten of these solos, there's plenty of call and response phrasing to be found here. I've added healthy doses of SRV style vibrato, some aggressive and emotional bending, pre-bends, as well as and step and a half bends.

I'm using the neck position here on my Strat style guitar. I like to use a model of a Soldano SL-100 for sounds like this as well. However, a blackface style Fender amp and transparent "tube screamer" style overdrive pedal should get you in the ball park for this kind a tone. Have fun with this one!
Tears from Above
You'll really want to make sure you have a handle on all of your C minor pentatonic scale shapes for this solo. Since there are a lot of bends, I would look at those separately and practice getting them in tune.
Tears from Above
Things to watch out for in this example are the pre-bends in Measures 17 and 18. Measure 20 has a great little flurry of notes, and the repetitive phrasing in Measures 22 and 23 are a classic example of SRV's style.
Ain't Sad for Long
Not all slow blues songs are sad or depressing! Here's an example of a chord progression that goes from minor to major. I really like how this solo navigates the changes and plays literally the same fingering for the licks and double stops as they're going by.

This solo, like many of the others, isn't too fast. Just because the tempo is slow, doesn't mean you have to play your fast licks. I know it's tempting, but practice some discretion and try to be melodic when telling your story. Give the listener something to remember!
Ain't Sad for Long
Understanding relative major and minor keys is important here. Also, once you've learned the double stops, go back and consider the actual notes that are being played and not just the shape. I'll talk about that more in the breakdown.
Ain't Sad for Long
The most important aspect of this solo is the double stops. Not only are they double stops, they're what we would call major and minor third intervals. These double stops (or intervals) outline the chords that are going by and really work like a hand in a glove.

I'm using the number 4 position on my Strat, which utilizes the neck and middle position. This is a classic sound reminiscent of players like Robert Cray. Coincidentally, I borrowed the chord progression from Mr. Cray for this example!

+ 25 more lessons

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Reviews

42 results

icadjenovic

Verified buyer

02/19/26

Great course!

It is a great course! Well organized, well explained, and excellently played. Great job Corey!

studdley2121

Verified buyer

01/16/26

Slow Blues

Excellent tutorials Corey teaches everything slowly the gradually builds up speed so you never get overwhelmed

rigamonk

Verified buyer

05/07/25

Back in the game

This is a set of lessons that can really take you places I am an older (well, ok, old) intermediate level player. I've plateaued here for years. This course not only taught some great ways to go about playing the blues, but inspiring you to play for real again. . .

NickJF

Verified buyer

01/25/25

Great price for the amount of lessons and tools in the package.

You can't beat the price on the amount of quality lessons you get with this packages. The looper tool is a great learning tool and it allows you to go at what speed best works for you. Tabs are easy to follow. The instructor is clear with his instructions. I would recommend this lesson.

rongirman

Verified buyer

01/11/25

slow blues

great easy to understand explains well

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