Time to dip our toes into a little theory 😁 (don’t worry, nothing too heavy – I promise!)
In music, intervals refer to the distance between different notes. Each interval has a quality which impacts the way it sounds, and these can be wildly different from one another.
Some intervals have a dissonant and tense sound, others create a sense of resolution and some are more ambiguous in nature.
These intervals change, depending on the key in which you are playing. For example, if you are playing in the key of A, then the note of A will perform a certain function. If you then switch to the key of G or E, the note of A will perform a different function and will sound quite different within that new musical context.
This is quite an in-depth topic and one which I have covered in great detail in the course ‘An Introduction To Intervals‘.
So if you want to dig deeper into this material, head over there to find out more.
The good news however is that for the purposes of improving your blues guitar solos – there is really just one piece of information to keep in mind. This is as follows:
Whenever you are playing in a key, certain notes will create a sense of resolution, whilst others will sound more open, or potentially even dissonant.
Even if you have never encountered the theory before, you might have heard or felt this when improvising.
You hit a note with a strong sense of resolution, and it brings your phrase to a strong and powerful conclusion. Conversely, you stop on a note that doesn’t resolve, and it makes your ideas feel incomplete. A little like stopping in the middle of a sentence.
Developing our understanding of the sound of specific intervals is a brilliant way of becoming more intentional in our note choices. So rather than playing a note and hoping for the best, you can target a specific interval with the knowledge that it will certain way.
And this brings us to the tonic.
What is the tonic?
The tonic note is the tonal centre of the piece of music that you are playing. If you are playing in the key of A, the note of A is the tonic.
If you are playing in the key of G, then the note of G is the tonic. And if you are playing in the key of C, then the note of C is the tonic. And so on.
In any given key, the tonic is the note around which everything is centred. When you play the tonic note, you are playing a note that is totally lacking in tension. It is perfectly resolved.
Regardless of the key in which you are playing, your ear draws you back to the tonic. So when you reach the tonic note, you achieve a moment of musical resolution.
You can see this around the 1.30 minute mark in the video above where I play a variety of notes of A over the backing track (which is in the key of A minor). There is no tension in the playing, and I could hypothetically hold those notes indefinitely without causing any dissonance.
You can use this quality of the tonic in your blues guitar solos to create phrases with a strong sense of resolution. The tonic will act like a musical full stop or ‘period’. It will bring any given phrase to a conclusion and allow you to pause before playing your next phrase.
There are a variety of benefits of this:
The first is that each of your phrases will sound intentional. You can create a phrase and then end it in a way that brings it to a strong close.
As the note creates resolution, it also provides you with a variety of options for your ‘next move’. You can hold that note and let it ring out, pause and leave space, or move straight onto the next phrase.
All of these will sound great, as there is no strong dissonance or tension that requires you to move on to the next phrase with any sense of urgency.
Lastly, you can use the tonic notes in any given key to provide ‘landing pads’ for your licks. For example, in the key of A minor – in just the first and second shapes of the A minor pentatonic scale – you will find the following tonic notes of A:
When you know where these different notes appear on the fretboard, you can begin to craft licks that move you between them. In this way, you can target different registers and textures in your solos, all whilst creating phrases with a strong sense of resolution.
All of the examples in this course are in the key of A minor. However the positions of these notes within these scale shapes are identical – even when you switch keys. In the key of G for example, they appear here on the fretboard:
As you can see – even though the frets are different, the position of the tonic note within each scale shape is the same. In this way, once you get comfortable targeting the tonic in the first two shapes of the minor pentatonic in the key of A, you can then shift it out to different keys.
Getting started
In this lesson we have taken a focused approach – looking at a single key and where the tonic notes appear in just the first two shapes of the minor pentatonic scale.
To begin with, I would recommend practicing with just these notes. Get comfortable with where they appear on the fretboard and then build your confidence targeting them at the end of your phrases.
As you do so, work on targeting each of the different tonic notes. Try to mix up your approach so that you aren’t finishing all of your phrases in the same position. So target the tonic note at the 7th fret of the D string, the 5th fret of the E string and so on.
Once you have built this confidence, you can then start to move this idea out across the fretboard. Identify where the tonic notes appear in each shape of the minor pentatonic scale shapes, and then start to target them in your playing.
This will ensure that your playing always sounds intentional, which in turn will have a real positive impact on the quality and musicality of your improvisations.
And with the resolution side of the equation taken care of, you can then start to think about ways to ramp up the tension and ‘spice’ in your solos. But that’s a topic for another day…
Until then, give this a go – and when you’re ready head over to the next lesson, where we’ll look at how you can get much more mileage out of all of your licks, by focusing on technique. See you over there!
