How Great Blues Players Build LONGER Solos - 472

Why guitar solos run out of steam

0:00Welcome friends to the Play Guitar Podcast. I'm Lee and I'm here to help you become the guitar player that you've always wanted to be. Welcome to the last week of our Blues Phrasing Series. Next week we've got something really exciting coming. We're going to be talking about practicing. I'm going to be doing some practicing along with you. So one of the most common things I hear from my students is, I don't know what to practice. What can we do each week to keep me moving forward? So each week we're going to have a new thing for you to add to your practice routine.

Okay, so I look forward to seeing you next week. But this week we're going to finish up. We're talking about connecting ideas and developing ideas. So one of the most common frustrations, things that really upset the Blues players who are learning is they start a solo with a few good ideas and then they run out of things to say. Have you experienced that? I have.

0:54I started really confidently. I play everything I know and then suddenly I'm stuck and I'm repeating the same thing over and over and over again and the song's not even over yet. I start wandering around. I look for a scale shape. It sounds like I'm just going up and down scales and I wonder where to go next. What's interesting is great Blues players don't really know more licks than everyone else does. What do they do? They take the ones they know and they know how to develop ideas from those. And today I'm going to explore how great Blues players build longer solos without needing endless amounts of licks and different material.

1:32So let's talk about it. Why do most guitar solos run out of steam? Well, it's because you're thinking in individual licks. You treat every lick as a separate event. Here's this one. And when it finishes, I'm going to put another one right next to it. And now it's like you're putting blocks together. Right. But they're unrelated. One has nothing to do with the next one. Solos become collections of disconnected phrases. So there's a problem with that. There's no direction.

Building solos around a single idea

2:04Nothing links these ideas together. The listener can't follow the story when you do that. It gets repetitive. It gets random. But the truth is that great solos are built around ideas. Taking a simple idea, a simple musical statement, and that becomes the foundation of everything else that you play from it. Think about it. I might take something from the vocal. So if we've got a song, maybe it's like this. We've got a song that's maybe like this. And let's say that the singer sings. Maybe that's the melody.

2:53Well, everything I do from this point is going to grow from that. So let's see what we can do. I might do it in an octave up.

3:01And I might come back down here. I only get halfway through the lick and I start repeating some of the ideas that are in there. I'll start using the rhythms from it.

3:33I'll start using the rhythms from it. So as I go through this, I'm figuring out little things that I hear from the song and incorporating those in my solo. We get some cool stuff out of that. Great blues players, they reuse ideas constantly. The same phrase that they played in the beginning of the song often appears multiple times throughout.

4:05They vary it, though. That's the key. So every time they might play it, to them it's the same phrase, but they're going to hold on to one note a little bit longer. Or they might play it in reverse and they might add a few notes to it. They make small variations and that creates movement. It makes it familiar because it's something that's from the song, but it also helps the listener stay connected. Most players chase instant novelty by moving from one lick to the next lick to the next lick to the next lick.

4:38Every phrase tries to be different. New ideas keep appearing, but the old ones never got developed in the first place. So that is why people kind of tune out. Your solos become crowded and unfocused. But the truth is, if you can develop your ideas, this is going to create length. You're going to make a nice long solo just by taking one idea and making small changes. This can generate entire choruses if you need to. You can change the rhythm.

5:08Any kind of rhythm change is going to start making something sound fresh. That's the only way I can think of it. It makes it sound current like you're in the moment there. It makes a simple idea carry a solo much farther than you would think you'd be able to do that. So, okay. Sounds good. I understand you. I agree with you. Right? You may be saying that. How do I do that myself? I don't know. How do you build longer solos yourself?

Starting small with a two note motif

5:38The first thing you're going to do is you want to start smaller. Smaller than you think. You might use a lick that may be the most awesome lick in the world. It might be fast. That's going to be too much for us to develop. You might want to use something with two or three notes. I can develop that. That's a little phrase, a little motif. Here you go.

6:31Could you hear that every single phrase I did was a derivative, I guess, of the first one, right? That one motif became my entire solo. I sometimes took the rhythm from it and used it on other notes. Sometimes I took the same notes. Sometimes I bend those notes. But it was a simple idea and it gave me room to grow. The big problem is you start to peak too early. You start the song,

7:07you play everything you know, and your energy level just stays flat. You don't have anywhere left to build. That was building energy as I was playing it and it was giving me new ideas as the energy was building. You need to think like a storyteller. Introduce an idea, develop the idea,

Resolving phrases and telling a story

7:27and then resolve the idea. Let's talk about resolving the idea. So I am up here and then I might go So I'm developing. Let's end it.

7:54So I changed the rhythm to something a little bit more final and I ended on the strong note that's in the key of A and I ended it on an A. You knew as soon as I played that that idea was over, right? It could have been or it could have been or something strong and powerful and final. Once I resolved it, this is gold because that idea was communicated and now the listener's ready

8:28for something else. Now we're ready for a new idea. You can develop this more. You can repeat it. You can bring in a new idea. So a second idea and then blend those two together. So let's see here. So my second idea could be So the first one is and this one's So let's say this is the ending Could you hear the blending of the two ideas? I kept coming back to the double stop

9:14but I was using all of those different variations of the first like around it. I was telling a story And that's how stories work. That's how conversations work. That's how great blues solos work So this week I have a video lesson for you on the channel and I'm exploring five different blues licks But these are all related to each other These function together and they've been created from each other

9:45And if you go and take a look at that You're going to see exactly how to start playing these things and putting them together and taking an idea and developing it Instead of having random licks to memorize I'm going to show you the five different jobs that phrases can perform inside a solo And because when you understand them you're going to stop wondering what comes next You'll start hearing where the solo wants to go Okay, so that's uh, that's what i'm going to be talking about today Um, I want to remind you Next week we start our big practice

10:17Uh kickoff So each week i'm going to be giving you something for you to throw into your practice routine That's different. That's going to keep you moving forward keep you moving grounded and you're going to start to Understand how my method works Uh, and this is all free It's all in the the youtube videos and uh, you know You sit down to practice Maybe turn the video on this will give you something new and fresh to uh To work on and it's it's not just blue stuff. It's going to be Uh chord based it's going to be lead guitar based

10:47It's going to be uh, even working ideas with working with songs, too Okay, so, um, uh, this is a little bit shorter one, but i i've enjoyed spending time with you today And I look forward to getting on with all of our practice stuff next week. Okay. I'll see you. Thanks. Bye. Bye