Picky2
Verified buyer
10/21/25
Blues Course
Great beginners blues introduction, lots of great licks and scales information. Absolutely a bargain price right now
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary
Supercharge Your Blues Guitar Licks with this Blues Learning Path Core Course
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TrueFire
Educator
Genres
About this course
Welcome to Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary for intermediate to late Intermediate students of blues guitar.
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 10 top TrueFire educators: Jeff McErlain, Corey Congilio, Jeff Scheetz, Robbie Laws, Anthony Stauffer, James Hogan, Richard Von Bergen, Andy Aledort, Steve Trovato and Mike Zito.
The Lick Vocabulary curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators’ existing TrueFire course libraries.
Music is a language. In the same way that words and sentences are connected to form stories, musical licks and phrases are connected to form solos. And just like any language, the more robust your musical vocabulary is, the more interesting and diverse your solos will be. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with an essential vocabulary of licks along with the technical skills required to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary is organized into 3 sections. In the first section, you’ll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for putting licks together. Section 2 will have you playing your way through some essential blues licks. Finally in Section 3 you will head down south to brush up on your Texas blues licks.
When you’ve completed the lessons here in Lick Vocabulary, you’ll find more lessons focused on building your vocabulary in Lick Lexicon, also a Play Blues Guitar 5 core course.
The educators demonstrate all of the key examples over jam tracks (where and when applicable) to simulate a real-world application, in a musical context. All of the key examples are also tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes.
You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, you’ll have all of the available jam tracks to work with on your own.
Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you’ll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.
Grab your guitar and let’s get started!
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 10 top TrueFire educators: Jeff McErlain, Corey Congilio, Jeff Scheetz, Robbie Laws, Anthony Stauffer, James Hogan, Richard Von Bergen, Andy Aledort, Steve Trovato and Mike Zito.
The Lick Vocabulary curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators’ existing TrueFire course libraries.
Music is a language. In the same way that words and sentences are connected to form stories, musical licks and phrases are connected to form solos. And just like any language, the more robust your musical vocabulary is, the more interesting and diverse your solos will be. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with an essential vocabulary of licks along with the technical skills required to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary is organized into 3 sections. In the first section, you’ll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for putting licks together. Section 2 will have you playing your way through some essential blues licks. Finally in Section 3 you will head down south to brush up on your Texas blues licks.
When you’ve completed the lessons here in Lick Vocabulary, you’ll find more lessons focused on building your vocabulary in Lick Lexicon, also a Play Blues Guitar 5 core course.
The educators demonstrate all of the key examples over jam tracks (where and when applicable) to simulate a real-world application, in a musical context. All of the key examples are also tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes.
You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, you’ll have all of the available jam tracks to work with on your own.
Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you’ll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.
Grab your guitar and let’s get started!
What you'll learn
- Expand guitar musical vocabulary
- Develop blues guitar lick vocabulary
- Develop a variety of blues guitar licks
- Develop comprehensive lick analysis skills
- Improve soloing techniques
Release date: 09/14/2016 • 2h 35m runtime
Sample lessons
LIVE! Playing with a Vocalist Means Sharing the Stage
Performance
Lick Vocabulary 1
Key of E 1st Position
More Essential G Blues Licks
Examples
Sidewinder
Lick 13
What's included
39 lessons • 31 charts • 27 Jam Tracks
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary
Welcome to Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary for intermediate to late Intermediate students of blues guitar.
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 10 top TrueFire educators: Jeff McErlain, Corey Congilio, Jeff Scheetz, Robbie Laws, Anthony Stauffer, James Hogan, Richard Von Bergen, Andy Aledort, Steve Trovato and Mike Zito.
The Lick Vocabulary curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators' existing TrueFire course libraries.
Music is a language. In the same way that words and sentences are connected to form stories, musical licks and phrases are connected to form solos. And just like any language, the more robust your musical vocabulary is, the more interesting and diverse your solos will be. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with an essential vocabulary of licks along with the technical skills required to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary is organized into 3 sections. In the first section, you'll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for putting licks together. Section 2 will have you playing your way through some essential blues licks. Finally in Section 3 you will head down south to brush up on your Texas blues licks.
When you've completed the lessons here in Lick Vocabulary, you'll find more lessons focused on building your vocabulary in Lick Lexicon, also a Play Blues Guitar 5 core course.
The educators demonstrate all of the key examples over jam tracks (where and when applicable) to simulate a real-world application, in a musical context. All of the key examples are also tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes.
You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, you'll have all of the available jam tracks to work with on your own.
Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you'll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.
Grab your guitar and let's get started!
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 10 top TrueFire educators: Jeff McErlain, Corey Congilio, Jeff Scheetz, Robbie Laws, Anthony Stauffer, James Hogan, Richard Von Bergen, Andy Aledort, Steve Trovato and Mike Zito.
The Lick Vocabulary curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators' existing TrueFire course libraries.
Music is a language. In the same way that words and sentences are connected to form stories, musical licks and phrases are connected to form solos. And just like any language, the more robust your musical vocabulary is, the more interesting and diverse your solos will be. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with an essential vocabulary of licks along with the technical skills required to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 5: Lick Vocabulary is organized into 3 sections. In the first section, you'll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for putting licks together. Section 2 will have you playing your way through some essential blues licks. Finally in Section 3 you will head down south to brush up on your Texas blues licks.
When you've completed the lessons here in Lick Vocabulary, you'll find more lessons focused on building your vocabulary in Lick Lexicon, also a Play Blues Guitar 5 core course.
The educators demonstrate all of the key examples over jam tracks (where and when applicable) to simulate a real-world application, in a musical context. All of the key examples are also tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes.
You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, you'll have all of the available jam tracks to work with on your own.
Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you'll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.
Grab your guitar and let's get started!
Concepts & Insight
In this section you will learn how to mix the minor and Major pentatonic scales in order to be able to play over any blues tonality.
TIP! Like any person who speaks eloquently has a grasp of a variety of words to get their message across, so it is with licks for guitar players. The more licks you know and work on, the more you expand your vocabulary to communicate with your guitar.
When you sit down to work on licks, make sure you are taking your time. Get not only the lick itself down, but make a mental note of all the different techniques that the lick includes. Does it have bending in it? Hammer ons or Pull offs, slides, vibrato? What kind of phrasing is used? What scale is it from? What chords can it be played over? There is a lot more to a lick than just playing through it. Make sure you are really getting the most knowledge out of every lick you learn.You'll find that knowledge helpful down the road.
TIP! Like any person who speaks eloquently has a grasp of a variety of words to get their message across, so it is with licks for guitar players. The more licks you know and work on, the more you expand your vocabulary to communicate with your guitar.
When you sit down to work on licks, make sure you are taking your time. Get not only the lick itself down, but make a mental note of all the different techniques that the lick includes. Does it have bending in it? Hammer ons or Pull offs, slides, vibrato? What kind of phrasing is used? What scale is it from? What chords can it be played over? There is a lot more to a lick than just playing through it. Make sure you are really getting the most knowledge out of every lick you learn.You'll find that knowledge helpful down the road.
Minor Pentatonic Scale
Minor Pentatonic Scale - Concept 1 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
The A minor pentatonic scale is most likely the first scale you learned on the guitar and there is a lot of music in those notes. A pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale as opposed to the normal 7 note scale. It is simply a natural minor scale with the 2nd and 6th degrees removed. An easy way to look at it is as a minor scale with the half steps removed. For example A minor is A B C D E F G, A minor pentatonic is A C D E G. By removing the B and F we remove the notes that can be problematic at times, especially the F. Please check out the 4 note groupings and one string at a time methods, these really helped me solidify the scale and the notes on the neck.
The A minor pentatonic scale is most likely the first scale you learned on the guitar and there is a lot of music in those notes. A pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale as opposed to the normal 7 note scale. It is simply a natural minor scale with the 2nd and 6th degrees removed. An easy way to look at it is as a minor scale with the half steps removed. For example A minor is A B C D E F G, A minor pentatonic is A C D E G. By removing the B and F we remove the notes that can be problematic at times, especially the F. Please check out the 4 note groupings and one string at a time methods, these really helped me solidify the scale and the notes on the neck.
Minor Blues Scale
Minor Blues Scale - Concept 2 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
The Minor Blues scale is just a minor pentatonic scale with an added b5. The b5 is often called the blue note, hence the name of the scale. To most players the pentatonic and blues scale are synonymous because they are so ubiquitous. The blues scale can be traced back to African roots and found its way into the field hollers of slaves and plantation workers in the early 1900's. I highly suggest checking out some of the field recordings of that time on YouTube, that sound is the essence of the blues. On a technical note, the blue note is not usually "sat on" for any long period of time as it causes a dissonance that when used properly adds a great tension. That tension always calls for release.
The Minor Blues scale is just a minor pentatonic scale with an added b5. The b5 is often called the blue note, hence the name of the scale. To most players the pentatonic and blues scale are synonymous because they are so ubiquitous. The blues scale can be traced back to African roots and found its way into the field hollers of slaves and plantation workers in the early 1900's. I highly suggest checking out some of the field recordings of that time on YouTube, that sound is the essence of the blues. On a technical note, the blue note is not usually "sat on" for any long period of time as it causes a dissonance that when used properly adds a great tension. That tension always calls for release.
Major Pentatonic Scale
Major Pentatonic Scale - Concept 3 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
The major pentatonic scale like the minor pentatonic scale is just a major scale with the half steps removed. As its name suggests it produces a more major and happy sound. Generally speaking it is more closely associated with Chicago blues like players like BB King, as opposed to Albert King who has more of a minor Texas blues sound. Of course these are large generalizations but think of them as simple player related guidelines. If it's darker sounding it's minor blues, if it's brighter sounding it's major blues. I highly suggest playing over a major groove to get used to the sound and feel of the major pentatonic scale because if you are not used to it, like anything, it takes time.
The major pentatonic scale like the minor pentatonic scale is just a major scale with the half steps removed. As its name suggests it produces a more major and happy sound. Generally speaking it is more closely associated with Chicago blues like players like BB King, as opposed to Albert King who has more of a minor Texas blues sound. Of course these are large generalizations but think of them as simple player related guidelines. If it's darker sounding it's minor blues, if it's brighter sounding it's major blues. I highly suggest playing over a major groove to get used to the sound and feel of the major pentatonic scale because if you are not used to it, like anything, it takes time.
Major Blues Scale
Major Blues Scale - Concept 4 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
The major pentatonic scale formula is R 2 3 5 6, to get a major blues scale we add in a b3rd. So the new formula is R 2 b3 3 5 6. When using this scale we have to be careful to treat the b3rd as a passing tone as it really clashes with the major 3rd of the major chord we would be soloing over. It sounds great and makes things a bit more... bluesy. I really associate this sounds with the Allman Bros, especially tunes like Melissa, Blue Sky, and Ramblin' Man. Not blues tunes I know but they are great uses of the major blues scale is its pure form. This scale is also used a great deal in country music as well and really helped me in those situations, which fortunately don't happen that often! I love country music, I just don;t play it very well!
The major pentatonic scale formula is R 2 3 5 6, to get a major blues scale we add in a b3rd. So the new formula is R 2 b3 3 5 6. When using this scale we have to be careful to treat the b3rd as a passing tone as it really clashes with the major 3rd of the major chord we would be soloing over. It sounds great and makes things a bit more... bluesy. I really associate this sounds with the Allman Bros, especially tunes like Melissa, Blue Sky, and Ramblin' Man. Not blues tunes I know but they are great uses of the major blues scale is its pure form. This scale is also used a great deal in country music as well and really helped me in those situations, which fortunately don't happen that often! I love country music, I just don;t play it very well!
Mixing Major and Minor
Mixing Major and Minor - Concept 5 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
The real good stuff starts to happen when we mix the major and minor blues scales. This is what Jimi, Eric, Jeff, Peter, BB, Buddy, Albert, Albert, Freddie, and everyone who I left out does! My personal favorites are the British blues guys like Clapton and Peter Green. These two players in particular melded what the classic American blues players were doing into a new approach of the blues. A classic example of this mixture of the major and minor blues scales is Clapton's solo on Crossroads. This solo still kills me, it is perfection.
The real good stuff starts to happen when we mix the major and minor blues scales. This is what Jimi, Eric, Jeff, Peter, BB, Buddy, Albert, Albert, Freddie, and everyone who I left out does! My personal favorites are the British blues guys like Clapton and Peter Green. These two players in particular melded what the classic American blues players were doing into a new approach of the blues. A classic example of this mixture of the major and minor blues scales is Clapton's solo on Crossroads. This solo still kills me, it is perfection.
+ 32 more lessons
Reviews
12 results
Derij
Verified buyer
09/15/25
Great content
It's good to see what it's possible to achieve with this corse.
rbroeg
Verified buyer
03/28/25
Worth the money and time
I am finding a lot of tasty licks.
LouisPRS
Verified buyer
11/28/24
Don
Instruction by several of the best teachers covering licks leading to and following the chord changes. One of my favorite lessons!
Stratotao
Verified buyer
08/21/22
vocabulary
It took me some years to understand that building the vocabulary is important!
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