Playing faster blues licks?

RandallFlagg

I'm not a hugely proficient lead player, I know the blues scale but struggle sometimes to put fast flourishes together, but I am slowly getting better at blues lead and licks, however I notice that I rarely use my little finger for blues runs. If I want to play in a Joe Bonamassa style is it essential to get the little finger involved?

I find that I play with thumb wrapped over a lot of the time and using my little finger makes me put thumb behind neck and lose my instinctual string dampening ability.

nocasternoproblem

It's not essential but it's 25% of your capacity you're ignoring.  Can you play the riffs you want slowly, are the notes under your fingers, can you access the pull offs and hammer ons?  If so, it's not technique, it's speed i.e. Just Play it quicker!  If you can't play it slowly and accurately, you maybe need to consider getting back to basics and deconstruct your approach. 

RandallFlagg

Yes i think it's speed so probably just need to play more for longer and build up

EricTheWeary

IIRC Gary Moore didn't use his pinky at all. Playing fast blues runs seems a common thing in the lick library range so perhaps have a look on there. A lot of that kind of playing is standard licks that you can practice to get up to tempo and then throw into solos. I think Otis Grand said there are only about 50 blues licks and everything else is just how you combine them, key and tempo. He is in the tradition of guitarists like the three Kings whereas JoBo is throwing in those Eric Johnson type things sometimes when he plays fast so they are more rock/ fusion oriented licks, maybe what you need the little finger for (!).

RandallFlagg

Just watched a couple of Bonamassa's jam tracks and he rarely uses his little finger and plays with his thumb over. I will keep practicing!

nickp

if it is picking speed then maybe some intensive practice with a metronome working on your alt picking, economy picking, and legato?  

Evo

A lot of speed comes from accuracy. Most of the time, when somebody asks me for advice on playing fast phrases, the first thing I will do is ask them to show me how they approach it already. They flail their fingers around the minor pentatonic with no real idea of what they're going for, other than that they want it fast. 
If you don't have a specific phrase in mind, it's likely that you'll fumble and lose the momentum you need to carry the speed off. So before you launch into a speedy lick, decide if you're going for ascending or descending, are you sequencing? How many notes per sequence?

Work a few sequences into your practice routine, maybe descending the blues scale in groups of 6 or ascending your major scale in groups of 5. That way, when it comes to throw that fast lick in, your fingers have some patterns they can fall into

Busterthedog

For what it's worth I would suggest putting together a few stock phrases,e.g the repeating licks at the start of the solo in Freebird, or the pull off lick near the end of Stairway to heaven,play them so often you can put them in anywhere you want,play them slowly and the speed will come,the picking is so important in these type of licks,as for using the pinky,well,Clapton did ok without using it much for lead work.