Ahh finally a blues solo in the Guitar Masterclass! You have probaly heard it before and it's definately worth repeating: The blues is the foundation for most things you can think of on the electric guitar.
So it doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a shredder - you will benefit from learning the licks in this solo! The beginner should (of course) start by picking the easiest licks. If you struggle hard, this could be a kick-off to start improvising - it definately was for me, when I started playing. I could never have done it without the pentatonic scale and a healthy dose of blues licks.
By learning blues licks the "shredder" will get more "phrasing" and "feel" in his fast licks. In my opinion the best shred licks are the ones that end and start with a blues flavored lick!
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Hot Blues Sound Settings
Marshall JCM 800 simulation
Medium drive settings
Bass & Middle 11 o'clock
Treble one o' clock
Reverb 9 o' clock
As always I have a very slight (barely audible) delay to fatten up the sound.
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Chord progression
A nice way to get a fat sound out of your gear when recording is to "double" the guitar, ie recording a second take with another guitar an octave above or below.
With this technique you can do it live! Play any melody you know with this octave shape and you will get a fat octave sound.
Here is a simple lick which is made very bluesy . Play this one at least 1000 times ( no kidding - you to get good don't you?) to get the right feel for the bend.
Here is a Stevie Ray Vaughan/Albert King style lick.
I have always wondered why this sounds so cool - I'm still not sure why, but I suspect it is because of the first unusual intervall (1-5). The interval is not comonly seen in the pentatonic scale because of the fingering. Anyway, let me know if you have a better explanation! :)
Also, be sure to slightly angle your index finger when playing the first four notes, in order not get the e- and b- strings ringing at the same time.
Same as the very first lick but with a different ending.
When playing improvised blues, it's always a good idea to have one or two licks/phrases that you repeat once in a while. The creates the impression of a more structured solo, even though you are iomprovising.
This is one of my absolute favorite things to do: repeating an uneven pattern creates an ultra cool effect called rhythmic displacement.
If you want to create your own rhythmic displacements, all you have to do is (as an example) to come up with a uneven sixteenth note pattern = a pattern with 5, 7 ,9 (etc.) notes.
An even sixteenth note pattern would contitute of 4, 8, 12, 16 (etc) notes.
An even triplet note pattern would contitute of 3, 6, 9, 12 (etc) notes. Hope you get the difference.
If the blues sound you dialed in is sensitive to dynamics, hitting the strings harder will result in more distortion. To make the distorted sound even more obvious I ended the run with double stops. I just can't get enough of this effect.
Here is a different approach to the pentatonic scale. Yes you heard me, I actually see these chords as directly derived from the scale.
The pentatonic scale is usually played two-notes-per-string, this is what it sounds/looks like if you play the different boxes with a one-note-per-string approach. All off a sudden you get a bunch of cool chord voicings which you can use when improvising in the pentatonic scale!