In our final section we take the slow 12 bar blues we learnt previously and tackle an awesome Stevie Ray Vaughan style solo which will push you to the limit of your blues playing. The solo makes use of Stevie Ray Vaughan's incredible dynamic playing.
Our final SRV style solo is all about dynamics and creativity! The entire solo is in the key of G blues, and we, therefore, apply everything we have learnt so far, but now in the key of G. Stevie Ray Vaughan is the master of creativity within one or two shapes, and this solo will help you understand how you can use dynamics, techniques and style to take your playing to the next level. Watch the video a few times before moving on and starting to learn the solo.
The track kicks off by moving between the G7 and C7 before moving to the turnaround part of a 12 bar blues. In the first lick, we target those two specific chords, as shown in the fretboard diagram. We then move into our G blues scale and pentatonic shape one and two for the turnaround lick. Don't forget that we are using that classic Stevie Ray Vaughan 'out note' that we discussed in the first solo.
Lick 3 and 4 are great examples of using techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, combined with dynamics (playing hard or soft) can make a massive impact on your blues playing. In lick 3, we focus on this quick legato effect, which can really tire the fingers, so do it slowly for a while to make sure you build up the strength. Then in lick 4, we see how a repetitive lick, alongside dynamic shifts, can sound amazing! These are tricky licks, so take your time with them. In terms of scales, we are using a combination of the G blues scale and the G major shape 2 pentatonic, as shown in the fretboard diagrams.
This combined shape gives Stevie Ray Vaughan all the ammunition he needs to create some incredible bluesy licks. If you would like to understand this concept in more detail then please check out the Genre Studies course on Blues!
A little secret that a lot of blues players use is something I call the 'up and down effect'! This is simply playing a lick that takes you to the very top of a scale, then playing a counter lick that takes you all the way down. It's an awesome trick that can really help you phrase and structure your solos better. As you can see, we haven't changed the scale shape at all. We are still using the same combined scale as shown in the last video, so this is another example of how much you can get from one position.
This lick shows off a slightly different approach to your blues soloing where we move with the chord. For the first part of lick 8, we move our major/minor pentatonic shape up to D7. This simply means that we are playing a D minor pentatonic shape 1 with a D major pentatonic shape 2 (plus that cool Texas blues 'out note') to highlight the sound of the five chord (D). We then move this whole lick down to C, as shown on the fretboard diagrams.
For the final lick, we come back to the G Blues scale, but this time shape 5. We then return to shape 1 minor pentatonic on the third fret, and finally back up to shape 1 a whole octave up, on the 15th fret! Be sure you are constantly reminding yourselves what shapes you are using as you play through this solo!
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