Hello everyone,
I’ve been a self-taught guitarist for almost ten years. In this time I’ve managed to learn all the chords and I have a basis of music theory on chord composition, scales and so on thanks to lessons in another instrument.
My goal would be to be able to jam with my friends for example doing a solo during a 12 Bar Blues.
What I can’t figure out is how to do it.
if for example it was a Blues a G I should use the G major scale and play “random” notes of the scale?
i don’t know if you can recommend any videos or documents on this.
I thank you for your response
Gio
The problem here is there’s no single “right” answer, it could take a whole book to answer properly in any detail.
12 bar blues can be a number of things and will depend on the style and chord progression. If it’s a minor blues using minor chords then the minor pentatonic will be pretty much all you need to get going.
All other blues can be a bit more complicated and might use major, minor, mixolydian or all combined. However, most blues, even where major would sound better, will often still work with the minor pentatonic – the clash between the two can sound bluesy. It all takes a lot of practice and experience so it’s best, for now, just stick with the minor pentatonic and experiment – move it three frets down and it becomes major pentatonic, this can give you an idea of the differences, even if it’s not the best way to go about it.
Play random notes? Yes and no, they need some structure. To get going I would play over some jam tracks and experiment with random notes but play them in phrases that all end on a good sounding note – the root would do. You could learn some licks and just mess around with them – all of this gives you a better idea of phrasing.
Don’t go too crazy with scale notes, keep phrases to small groups of notes and avoid just playing back and forth through the scale.
Work through this article, it is very closely related to what you can do with a lot of common blues progression, especially major blues.
https://www.guitar-chords.org.uk/blog/rock-roll-guitar-soloing-part-1/
Videos, plenty on Youtube if you browse through but none I could think of in particular.
I would however recommend any of the Jeff McErlain stuff found on Truefire. Check them often, they have sales regularly.
Jeff McErlain – Truefire (Affiliate Link)
