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Blues Endings in A

by Emir Hot

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  • Hello again! This time I have 5 cool bluesy endings which you can use in the 12 bar blues progression to finish the song. Many blues songs in major chord finish with this rhythm structure as on the video so if you are a blues fan you might find it useful.

    Here I often use a hybrid picking. Not that much but when appropriate. Especially when there is a string skip (like on the Ex. 1 – there is 5th, 3rd and 2nd string played together when finishing the phrase) I play bass note with the pick and pluck the other two with the second and the third finger of my right hand. You could play them all with the pick but you will not get that bluesy feel if you don’t concentrate 100% on the pick tension. That’s why I would recommend practicing as shown on the slow videos but anyway it’s your choice of technique. Maybe you will notice that picking on the main video doesn’t always match the one played on a slow video but the blues itself is about how you feel in that very moment:) There are also clips showing just my right hand if that’s of any help but feel free to experiment.

    There are many different scales you can use in major blues. You can use major scale, mixolydian scale, lydian or lydian dominant scale because of lydian’s #4/b5 etc… For this time I made three very simple and common ones in five position system for you: minor pentatonic, major pentatonic and a blues scale which has 6 notes. Blues scale is the same as minor pentatonic but with flat 5 added. I marked that flat 5 with the grey color on the blues scale picture.

    Maybe you wonder why minor pentatonic works over a major chord? Because that minor 3rd interval always gives impression like it tends to resolve on a major 3rd. That’s why blues players always unconsciously bend that minor 3rd without thinking and when they do, they actually get something called the dominant pentatonic which has the root, (almost major 3rd when bended), 4th, 5th and the flat 7th. See the end of Ex. 2, 4 and 5 when the chord is resolved from minor 3rd to major 3rd in the solo.

    Sound advice: use compressor for punchy sound which always works well in blues played with a clean tone.

    I hope you will enjoy this one and see you soon.

    Emir

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