tyfirefighter31
Verified buyer
02/11/25
GREAT COURSE
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles
Energize Your Blues Guitar Solos with this Blues Learning Path Core Course
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TrueFire
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About this course
Welcome to Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles for intermediate to late Intermediate students of blues guitar.
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 6 top TrueFire educators: Larry Carlton, Jeff McErlain, Andy Aledort, David Hamburger, Jason Loughlin, and Mike Zito.
The Soloing Principles curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators’ existing TrueFire course libraries.
Solid rhythm chops may get you the gig but it's your soloing chops that gets you the spotlight and the opportunity to electrify the audience with your musicality. Creativity, technique, and vocabulary are the essential skills you’ll need to master the art of improvisation and develop into a great soloist. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite tools and guidance to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, you’ll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for building a solo. In Section 2 you’ll dissect solos across a variety of blues feels.
When you’ve completed the lessons here in Soloing Principles, you’ll find more lessons focused on soloing in Soloing Approaches, also a Play Blues Guitar 6 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 6 top TrueFire educators: Larry Carlton, Jeff McErlain, Andy Aledort, David Hamburger, Jason Loughlin, and Mike Zito.
The Soloing Principles curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators’ existing TrueFire course libraries.
Solid rhythm chops may get you the gig but it's your soloing chops that gets you the spotlight and the opportunity to electrify the audience with your musicality. Creativity, technique, and vocabulary are the essential skills you’ll need to master the art of improvisation and develop into a great soloist. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite tools and guidance to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, you’ll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for building a solo. In Section 2 you’ll dissect solos across a variety of blues feels.
When you’ve completed the lessons here in Soloing Principles, you’ll find more lessons focused on soloing in Soloing Approaches, also a Play Blues Guitar 6 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
- Learn solo construction principles
- Understand improvisation techniques
- Develop blues improvisation skills
- Develop strategic approach to soloing
- Build soloing vocabulary
Release date: 09/14/2016 • 2h 34m runtime
Sample lessons
Tweaking the 3rd
Concept 17
The Turnaround
Soloing Concept 3
Finger & Thumb Style
Concept 4
Texas Shuffle
Solo Performance
What's included
45 lessons • 17 charts • 20 Jam Tracks
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles
Welcome to Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles for intermediate to late Intermediate students of blues guitar.
This Blues Learning Path core course is presented by 6 top TrueFire educators: Larry Carlton, Jeff McErlain, Andy Aledort, David Hamburger, Jason Loughlin, and Mike Zito.
The Soloing Principles curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators' existing TrueFire course libraries.
Solid rhythm chops may get you the gig but it's your soloing chops that gets you the spotlight and the opportunity to electrify the audience with your musicality. Creativity, technique, and vocabulary are the essential skills you'll need to master the art of improvisation and develop into a great soloist. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite tools and guidance to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, you'll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for building a solo. In Section 2 you'll dissect solos across a variety of blues feels.
When you've completed the lessons here in Soloing Principles, you'll find more lessons focused on soloing in Soloing Approaches, also a Play Blues Guitar 6 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 6 top TrueFire educators: Larry Carlton, Jeff McErlain, Andy Aledort, David Hamburger, Jason Loughlin, and Mike Zito.
The Soloing Principles curriculum is comprised of select blues guitar lessons from the educators' existing TrueFire course libraries.
Solid rhythm chops may get you the gig but it's your soloing chops that gets you the spotlight and the opportunity to electrify the audience with your musicality. Creativity, technique, and vocabulary are the essential skills you'll need to master the art of improvisation and develop into a great soloist. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite tools and guidance to take your soloing skills to the next level.
Play Blues Guitar 6: Soloing Principles is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, you'll work on learning new concepts and gaining insight for building a solo. In Section 2 you'll dissect solos across a variety of blues feels.
When you've completed the lessons here in Soloing Principles, you'll find more lessons focused on soloing in Soloing Approaches, also a Play Blues Guitar 6 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 emphasize certain notes like the 3rd and the 7th, how to develop better phrasing, and even take a look at Hybrid picking. This will help expand your soloing abilities.
TIP! Soloing is more than just licks. You need to understand the correlation between phrasing, melody and harmony. Becoming a good soloist is as much if not more mental than physical.
When you are working on various soloing concepts, ask yourself questions like - What chords will this approach work over? What groove or feel does this solo fit best over? What is the best note choice for this part? How can I get from here to there in the solo? Are there other scale options? Does my solo have a beginning, a middle and an end? - Or am I just rambling on.
Asking yourself these questions as you are beginning to build up your soloing chops will help make sure you are really thinking about what you are playing and working on. If you put in the time on this now, it will eventually lead you to the ultimate place for soloists where you won't have to think about any of it at all - you just play!
TIP! Soloing is more than just licks. You need to understand the correlation between phrasing, melody and harmony. Becoming a good soloist is as much if not more mental than physical.
When you are working on various soloing concepts, ask yourself questions like - What chords will this approach work over? What groove or feel does this solo fit best over? What is the best note choice for this part? How can I get from here to there in the solo? Are there other scale options? Does my solo have a beginning, a middle and an end? - Or am I just rambling on.
Asking yourself these questions as you are beginning to build up your soloing chops will help make sure you are really thinking about what you are playing and working on. If you put in the time on this now, it will eventually lead you to the ultimate place for soloists where you won't have to think about any of it at all - you just play!
Tweaking the 3rd
Tweaking the 3rd - Concept 17 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
One of the best tips I can pass along that will almost instantly make you sound better is learning how to tweak the third of the scale. In a blues we are very often playing over a dom7 chord which contains a natural 3rd. The minor pentatonic scale contains a flat 3rd. This is a potential problem as those two notes are a 1/2 step apart and can really be unpleasant. To remedy this we can bend the flat 3rd to either the natural 3rd or the ever cool quarter step bend. Getting control over this bend it essential to playing guitar, not just blues. Like everything, we need to consciously practice this. There are so many subtle ways to play it and they can all sound different. I find it endlessly fascinating.
One of the best tips I can pass along that will almost instantly make you sound better is learning how to tweak the third of the scale. In a blues we are very often playing over a dom7 chord which contains a natural 3rd. The minor pentatonic scale contains a flat 3rd. This is a potential problem as those two notes are a 1/2 step apart and can really be unpleasant. To remedy this we can bend the flat 3rd to either the natural 3rd or the ever cool quarter step bend. Getting control over this bend it essential to playing guitar, not just blues. Like everything, we need to consciously practice this. There are so many subtle ways to play it and they can all sound different. I find it endlessly fascinating.
Tweaking the 7th
Tweaking the 7th - Concept 18 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
Just like tweaking the 3rd, another note we can manipulate is the b7 of the minor pentatonic scale. This is a great sound and should become as second nature as the tweaked third. One thing to make note is that this 7th is a whole step below the root as opposed to the half step tweak of the third so it requires a little more practice to pull it off with finesse. If you put in the time to perfect the nuance that the two of these bends can add to your playing you will sound better in a very short period of time. You will also wonder how you lived without them!
Just like tweaking the 3rd, another note we can manipulate is the b7 of the minor pentatonic scale. This is a great sound and should become as second nature as the tweaked third. One thing to make note is that this 7th is a whole step below the root as opposed to the half step tweak of the third so it requires a little more practice to pull it off with finesse. If you put in the time to perfect the nuance that the two of these bends can add to your playing you will sound better in a very short period of time. You will also wonder how you lived without them!
Phrasing
Phrasing - Concept 25 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
Chopin once told a student, "he who phrases incorrectly is like a man who does not understand the language he speaks." The best way I can define phrasing is by drawing a comparison to language as music is a language. When we speak we use sentences and form paragraphs. We do the same in music, a sentence is the same as a musical phrase. So when we play a line it should feel like a complete thought and make musical sense. Poor phrasing feels uncomfortable and incomplete. There should be a natural rhythm to a phrase. So it is very helpful to practice phrasing it does relate heavily to time as to where a the phrase should begin and end. This can all get very involved but I'm pretty sure that Muddy Waters never analyzed his rhythmic phrasing. The best way to get your phrasing together is TO LEARN OTHER PEOPLE'S SOLOS! Really, that is the way to do it! These courses can certainly help but that is the real key. Really. That and gigging...
Chopin once told a student, "he who phrases incorrectly is like a man who does not understand the language he speaks." The best way I can define phrasing is by drawing a comparison to language as music is a language. When we speak we use sentences and form paragraphs. We do the same in music, a sentence is the same as a musical phrase. So when we play a line it should feel like a complete thought and make musical sense. Poor phrasing feels uncomfortable and incomplete. There should be a natural rhythm to a phrase. So it is very helpful to practice phrasing it does relate heavily to time as to where a the phrase should begin and end. This can all get very involved but I'm pretty sure that Muddy Waters never analyzed his rhythmic phrasing. The best way to get your phrasing together is TO LEARN OTHER PEOPLE'S SOLOS! Really, that is the way to do it! These courses can certainly help but that is the real key. Really. That and gigging...
Dynamics of a Phrase
Dynamics of a Phrase - Concept 26 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Blues Guitar Survival Guide - Lead.
There are those light bulb moments that we all have and this was one of them. I discussed dynamics but here we are going to use dynamics within the musical phrase itself. I learned this from my friend and great player Pat Bergeson years ago. By adding in subtle or not so subtle dynamics a line can become much more interesting, it can also add a lot of forward motion to a phrase. That forward motion also adds some musical tension which is a good thing. We here these kind of dynamics in forms of music that allow it, meaning these dynamics are not practical in a heavy metal situation as they will be lost. You can definitely use them in the blues. These note articulations are so a part of my playing at this point I can't imagine playing with out them.
There are those light bulb moments that we all have and this was one of them. I discussed dynamics but here we are going to use dynamics within the musical phrase itself. I learned this from my friend and great player Pat Bergeson years ago. By adding in subtle or not so subtle dynamics a line can become much more interesting, it can also add a lot of forward motion to a phrase. That forward motion also adds some musical tension which is a good thing. We here these kind of dynamics in forms of music that allow it, meaning these dynamics are not practical in a heavy metal situation as they will be lost. You can definitely use them in the blues. These note articulations are so a part of my playing at this point I can't imagine playing with out them.
The IV7 to I7 Change
The IV7 to I7 Change - Soloing Concept 2 is a video guitar lesson presented by Jeff McErlain and is sourced from Focus On: British Blues.
One of my favorite scales, and one that is quite common in the British blues style (especially in Peter Green's playing), is the minor pentatonic natural 6th scale. That's not a very fun name for sure, but it's a great sound. This scale is a little "sweeter" sounding than the standard minor pentatonic scale. Here we are replacing the b7 in the minor pentatonic with the natural 6th. The formula is R 2 b3 4 5 6, and in the A that would give us the notes A,C,D,E,F#. This scale works exceptionally well on all three chords in the blues, giving a nice lighter sound on the I7 chord, and matching the IV7 chord perfectly. I suggest playing the scale over the I7 chord vamp provided in the previous concept. Then, play the same scale over the track provided here to hear it in action over the IV7 chord. The IV7 chord here is D7 (DF#AC), and as we can see the Am pentatonic natural 6 scale contains a full D7 arpeggio. By just changing one note of the Am pent scale we have outlined the IV7 without even having to know an arpeggio. Of course we should know that too...
One of my favorite scales, and one that is quite common in the British blues style (especially in Peter Green's playing), is the minor pentatonic natural 6th scale. That's not a very fun name for sure, but it's a great sound. This scale is a little "sweeter" sounding than the standard minor pentatonic scale. Here we are replacing the b7 in the minor pentatonic with the natural 6th. The formula is R 2 b3 4 5 6, and in the A that would give us the notes A,C,D,E,F#. This scale works exceptionally well on all three chords in the blues, giving a nice lighter sound on the I7 chord, and matching the IV7 chord perfectly. I suggest playing the scale over the I7 chord vamp provided in the previous concept. Then, play the same scale over the track provided here to hear it in action over the IV7 chord. The IV7 chord here is D7 (DF#AC), and as we can see the Am pentatonic natural 6 scale contains a full D7 arpeggio. By just changing one note of the Am pent scale we have outlined the IV7 without even having to know an arpeggio. Of course we should know that too...
+ 38 more lessons
Reviews
4 results
smarago
Verified buyer
09/10/23
As you can read in the description, it is a blend of other courses. What I like is that you get a lot of inputs if you know how to play the Blues scale, but you don't know what do with it. My favorite instructor of this course is Jeff Mc Erlain, therefore you may think of buying his Blues guitar survival guide instead. I liked also L. Carlton's and D. Humburger´s contribution to the course. The technical obstacles are not too high, so you can be sure to benefit from the material without struggling or being frustrated. If state of the art multimedia quality is of importance to you than better choose newer courses. There is quite much material on True Fire dealing with Blues Soloing. If the course is on sale I would say give it a try...
EricL
Verified buyer
07/13/20
Some really good stuff in here!
GregoryV
Verified buyer
06/23/20
Blues Guitar 6 Soloing Principles
Excellent
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