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Blues Guitar Licks
Blues Guitar Licks For Ultimate Expression
Do you want to learn some awesome blues guitar licks? Of course, you do!
Whether you like blues or not, there is no escaping the fact that the blues is the basis for many other styles of music. Having a strong foundation in blues music will improve your feel, phrasing and how you express yourself on the guitar.
Much More Than Just The Blues Scale
Many guitarists spend their entire guitar-playing life only using the blues scale. The blues at its most basic level is a simple three-chord progression and yes, the blues scale is a sound that you need to master, but there is so much more!
The great thing about improvising over a blues chord progression is that you can play as simple or complex as you want. Pretty much anything you practise can be applied to a blues chord progression... if you know how to use it.
The Basic Blues Chord Progression
A blues can include many harmonic possibilities and can become pretty complex, although the basic blues chord progression contains only three chords as follows:
|| E7Â Â | E7Â Â | E7Â Â | E7Â Â |
| A7Â Â | A7Â Â | E7Â Â | E7Â Â |Â
| B7Â Â | A7Â Â | E7Â Â | B7Â Â ||
Even the basic blues chord progression has many variations, although the chord progression above is a great place to start. Learn the chord progression and know it so well that you always know whereabouts you are in the progression by the sound of the chords alone.
Improve Your Feel
The blues scale is the one scale that theoretically shouldn't work over the chords of the blues if it is analysed. Without applying bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and all the elements that can be used to create a bluesy feel, some notes in the blues scale can just sound wrong. No wonder beginner guitar improvisers often struggle!
Learning blues vocabulary will help you to 'sing' on your guitar. Musical phrases sound so much more interesting when blues techniques are applied.
To improvise over a blues chord progression, you must understand the chord progression and have great guitar fretboard knowledge.
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Shred Blues Rock Guitar Lick
This fiery blues lick will ignite your guitar solos and will add great power to your improvisation.
The lick is very similar to many other guitar licks in the blues style, although it can definitely be used in many other musical genres. Crank up the overdrive and plug this lick into any rock guitar solo and you have instant awesomeness under your fingers.
The great thing about this lick is that you can loop it for as long as required. It is a great way to build musical tension in a solo and works well as a lick to bring a guitar solo to a close.
Blues Guitar Scale Combination
This blues guitar lick will give you ideas for new melodies over dominant 7th chords.
This is a nicely condensed 2-bar phrase that will work for many blues, funk or blues rock situations. There is quite a bit of melodic interest built into this lick, so analyse it, rip it apart and expand on the ideas.
E7 Guitar Blues Lick
This lick is specific to the E7 chord, so be sure to move the lick to fit the other chords in a blues.
Moving licks such as this one to follow the chord progression is a great way to begin following the chord changes. This is how you can really start to sound like a true blues master!
Blues Guitar Open String Lick
I used a thumb pick for this open-string guitar lick, although a pick-and-finger hybrid picking guitar technique will work just as well.
Adding open guitar strings to melodic and chord ideas creates different textures that cannot be achieved by only using fretted notes. It is a good idea to always keep open strings in the back of your mind and experiment to see if they can add new sounds to your repertoire.
Blues Guitar Lick iv to i
Many of these licks are played over a single chord. This example demonstrates one of the almost infinite possibilities of how to melodically navigate the chord built on the 4th degree of the scale (iv = A7) to the root chord (i = E7).
Smoothly transitioning through chord changes is one area of guitar playing in which many guitarists struggle.
Blues Guitar Diagonal E7 Lick
Diagonal licks cover a large area of the guitar fretboard and can be easily created when moving musical ideas in octaves.
This lick does not simply take one idea and move it through various octaves, although the thought process can be helpful in organising the fingering in your head. Some chromatic ideas have been added to the melodic line and I like the sound of the resulting lick.
Blues Guitar Open String Shred
Another lick using the thumb pick, although it can be played equally well using a hybrid picking technique (using your pick and fingers).
Palm muting has been applied to make the notes pop and the strings that are plucked with the picking hand's fingers smack down nicely on the frets, resulting in a powerful, driving lick.
This is one of my favourite licks from this batch as I love the powerful sound. Be sure to also try this lick on acoustic guitar.
Blues Guitar Chromatic Ascending Lick
More chromaticism and some intervallic jumps have been thrown into this musical idea.
This lick might be deviating from traditional blues guitar sounds, although I like the quirkiness and movement of this lick. It is important to learn the language of blues (or any style of music) so that you can play authentically, although things must evolve. I like to experiment with different ideas as this is what makes musical exploration fun
v iv i v Blues Guitar Lick
The last four bars of a blues chord progression are often played with chords whose roots are built on the 5th, 4th, 1st and 5th degrees of the scale. This is often written in Roman numerals as v iv i v.
This lick follows the chords nicely, so be sure to understand how the notes of the lick relate to each chord.
As always, play these licks with bags of feel!
Open String Blues Lick In E
There is a certain magic about using open strings. The fatter tone and option to let open strings ring together with fretted notes can create some great tones.
I like to play these types of licks with my pick (thumb pick) and fingers. This way, I can make the notes plucked with my fingers 'snap' when they hit the frets.
Blues Guitar iv to i
Don't fall into the trap of only using the blues scale when playing over a blues chord progression. The blues scale is one of many flavours that can be used.
Following and outlining the chord changes takes practice and means you need to always know over which chord you are improvising.
Blues Guitar Speed Lick
This speedy lick uses slurs (hammer-ons and pull-offs) to help phrase and execute the idea.
This is not really a legato lick, although you could add more hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides to smooth things out further.
Blues Guitar Open String Unison Lick
Another open string lick lets open strings ring together with fretted notes for a cool blues sound. I love the textures created by this type of idea.
Work on these open string licks and get the speed up as they sound great when played at a fast tempo.
Open String Unison Lick Variation
A variation on the previous lick. Make sure you come up with your own ideas by making slight adjustments to these licks so you can freely improvise using open strings.
These sound great on electric guitar and also when playing acoustic guitar.
Blues Scale Sweep Picking Lick
I like to think of sweep-picking as a compromise between the attack of alternate-picked ideas and the smoothness of legato playing.
Sweep-picking adds the bite whilst keeping everything flowing smoothly and allows for great speed.
A7 5-Note Sequence
Running through diatonic arpeggios to create long, horizontal runs on the guitar is always fun. This lick uses a 5-note sequence to create interesting phrasing in the melodic idea.
Anything can be used over a blues chord progression, so the blues is an excellent tool for learning new ideas and experimenting.
E Minor Pentatonic Scale Sweep
This sweep picking minor pentatonic lick is one of those ideas that you can loop for as long as you like. This makes it a great exercise to build speed and stamina with your sweep picking technique.
Not necessarily a blues lick as the minor pentatonic scale can be used anywhere, but it does work well for a fast blues run.
Country Guitar Style Double Stops
Double stops are simply two notes played together. I use many double stops when playing acoustic guitar gigs as it fattens out single-note solo ideas with two notes rather than one.
The added grit from an overdriven guitar sound adds another dimension to double-stop ideas and they sound great. Experiment with how much overdrive is added and add the grit to taste.
E Blues Scale Sweep Picking Lick
Another speedy sweep picking lick to give your pick and fingers a good workout.
I do love sweep picking as it gives a smooth sound, although retains attack, so is dynamically satisfying to my ears. Oh, and the speed possibilities are a big bonus!
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