how to go from licks to chord tone soloing....

wordy

hey all,

I've been putting a fair bit of work into some blues playing over the last couple of months, and have gotten to the stage where I can more or less get around the 5 positions of the blues scale.  I realise that some notes are particularly good to bend, am getting used to how they sound, and I know probably about 30 licks or so.

Playing along to a backing track it can already sound quite decent, but I realise that to progress, I need to pay more heed to the underlying chords - and pay attention to which notes I'm hitting, and when.

What I'm wondering is, how would you start trying to do this?  I have some ideas - but I'd just like to hear if I'm on the right track, and how you would work towards doing something a bit more sophisticated than what I'm doing at the moment.

Any advice?

JAYJO

I would learn dom7 arpeggios in 5 positions. (Of the chords used for your backing) mix them with your blues scale. Have them under your fingers and keep experimenting. Use your ears as a guide. You can get a book on chord tone soloing.

ToneControl

Based on your described status, my advice is to play songs you like - and try to copy the vocals - sounds basic, but blues solos should be mostly vocal in nature (this doesn't mean stop learning using every other means, or ignore theory)

I started out with scales, which are a great framework, but realised I should slow the playing down and get the phrasing and feel right (in my case with a small pick that helped to slow me but give better control of the tone), but it's getting your own ears to work that is the biggest step forward

I would rather work outwards in complexity after getting the phrasing, feel and expression needed to carry the existing vocal lines

 

Catthan

Learn the arps (1-3-5-7). You may or may not use arps in your solos but at least you'll learn the chord tones and where they are. 

You need to land on one of those 4 notes on the strong beats of the measure (1 & 3)

How you get there is for you to figure out, bends, slurs, penta runs, licks.. anything you like.

I'd start with straight 8ths and add rhythmic variation.

Try to maintain the bluesy feel and keep learning songs and melodies/ licks to understand how these concepts are used.

You'll also understand why some bends work and some don't etc.

Chances are you are using the concept already, just need to do the dirty work to back it up and develop it.

Good luck

wordy

thats exactly the sort of thing I was looking for - many thanks.....

frankus

instead of learning arps ... use the chords you know in each of the pentatonic patterns (AKA CAGED)

the advantage of this is the chord sounds can be played one after the other to find great combinations quickly and you know the fingerings...

playing every other note of a scale (not pentatonics) will also give chord tones...

I think it's important that chords, scales, arps are seen as exactly the same thing... there's melodic application and harmonic application separating chords and scales is the first and biggest mistake guitarists make.

Part of the reason for this is some solos sound awesome as double stops.. the other reason is why would you learn chords then learn scales then learn how to make scales sound like chords? they're the same thing.

EricTheWeary

There was a Gary Moore lesson in Guitaist ( IIRC) where he went through making the most of a single lick. The process would be something like playing only one lick over a backing track but exploring variations - having a different end note depending on which chord it is over, changing the bend, placing the vibrato in a different place, using the same notes but changing the phrasing, trying it with pick or pick and fingers,etc.
Peter Green, for example, would use slight variations of one lick over about the first 8 bars of a solo. He was also good at letting them breathe. As @ToneControl said blues based on vocal traditions so leave space for where a singer might draw breath. One of those odd things where doing less often takes more confidence than over playing. One of the other things I recall about Gary Moore was him being told off by Albert King for playing too many notes.
And go learn a Freddie King instrumental. Thats what Clapton and Green and many others did. Freddie was brilliant at exploiting melodic phrases, targetting chord tones, mixing major pentanonics in, use of double stops and open strings. Plenty of tabs and backing tracks for these on the net if you need them.

Rockhopper

It might be worth trying to play the Chord on the 1 of the bar then working from that using straight 8ths or a swing into the scale/arp of choice trying to hit a chord/character tone on the 3. It helps you get the sound of the chord in your head and makes links between chords, scales and arps.

Also after a little while cycling chords hopefully you will notice that you will pre-empt the next chord.

Barney

i would start learning the arps..then you know you are always going to land on a chord tone.....i would even go as far as learning all the arps in the 5 postions playing the 7 arps of the maj scale in each position so in C ...it would be Cmaj7 Dmin7 Emin7 Fmaj7 G7 Amin7 Bmin7b5...then move to next position...quite a bit of work but very good thing to do even for none blues stuff....i really think for blues though its more about the Phrasing ..

ThePrettyDamned

There was someone on here who gave me a hugely useful tip for blues (and it translated across into my own heavier style nicely).
If you're, say, on bar 6 of an Eminor blues (so you're on A minor, or the dominant 7th), you're about to go back to the e minor.  So try soloing in e minor during this bar, then land on the e on the first beat of the 7th bar.  This gives rise to a little tension, and a very strong resolution.  It, for me, made the difference (whenever I do jam blues) between sounding like a few pre prepared licks and making something that sounds semi professional.