Blues Phrasing Explained

Glenn Birdby Glenn Bird
Filed in Technique


How to Play Guitar Solos - BluesWhen it comes to playing the blues, one thing stands out before all else - feeling. There is a certain essence that's only captured in the blues style, and when learning how to play lead guitar in the blues style it becomes even more prevalent.

There are two things to note when it comes to getting it right. You must have both the emotive guitar tones that fit the mood you want to achieve with the song, and secondly it should be contained in a memorable pattern, otherwise known as a phrase.


What exactly is phrasing? The last sentence almost gave it away...it's basically a set of notes formed into a pattern with a start, middle and an end. This phrase can be used in the riff or solo, and can be played as a one off or part of the main theme and used in different octaves or even varying keys.


For the purpose of this article we'll look at how to play lead guitar phrasing in the style of Blues, and just to get an idea of what it sounds like and how to first think about it when we're structuring together our own solos. There are certain notes you may want to listen out for too, ones that are commonly played in all good blues solos and ones that are really only played in this particular style, in particular the 'Blue note'. It's a little mysterious by name but just means a note (commonly the third of the scale) that is bent slightly up, but not quite to the next note resulting in the in between area known as the blue note.


Check out this Video by Keith Wyatt as he shows you the basics of Blues Phrasing.

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