Once you can solo comfortably using the minor and major pentatonic scales, adding the blues scale to your repertoire is one of the easiest ways to make your playing more interesting. As the name of the scale suggests, it will also help to give your soloing a distinctly bluesy sound....
One mistake that I have consistently made in my quest for vintage blues tones is buying the wrong amp. As a young player I was sucked in by the bells and whistles of digital modelling amps. After that, I made the mistake of buying a very large valve amp. I...
I have wanted to sound like Joe Bonamassa since I first became aware of him around 5 years ago. I heard songs like 'Stop!' and 'Sloe Gin', and became enthralled by both his playing, and the quality of his guitar tone. To my mind, Joe Bonamassa is one of the...
A number of months ago, I wrote an article about the best guitar pedals for the blues. It really got me thinking about how crucial guitar pedals are when it comes to achieving a beautiful blues tone. So I thought it would be interesting to break down my last article on...
I have wanted to sound like Peter Green from the moment I first heard 'Black Magic Woman' as a teenager. In my opinion, Green's playing represents everything that is so brilliant about the blues. He plays with pure emotion. His playing is not fast, nor is it flashy. He doesn't use...
As guitarists, we spend a lot of time thinking about our fretting hands. We always want to talk about bending, trills and vibrato, but we pay a lot less attention to our picking hands. Your picking hand plays a huge role in how fast you can play, as well as...
Pick attack refers to the way that you strike your guitar strings with your picking hand. A heavy pick attack is one in which you strike the strings hard. On the other side of the spectrum, a soft pick attack is one in which you apply much less pressure with...
Guitarists spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about guitar strings. Perhaps it isn't surprising. Choosing which set of guitar strings to use is no easy task. There are different gauges and materials to consider and an ever increasing amount of marketing hype and jargon with which you have to...
Eric Clapton is one of the most influential blues guitarists of all time. With a career spanning more than 50 years, he has inspired generations of guitarists, myself included. The Bluesbreaker tones that Clapton pioneered during his time with John Mayall & The Blues Breakers are the stuff of legend. They...
The blues is a stripped back genre. It's not about flashy effects and gimmicks; it's about conveying emotion through technique, and a pure but simple guitar tone. Many blues guitarists pride themselves on their simple rig set ups. As such, guitar pedals don't play a predominant role in the blues. ...
If you want to create varied and interesting blues guitar...
I think there are very few blues guitarists out there who...
Over the years, I have met only a handful of guitarists who...
If you want to play lead guitar, then learning the minor...
From the moment I first heard ‘Parisienne Walkways’ I...
If you are looking to develop a killer blues guitar tone,...
The world of guitar amps is difficult to navigate. There are...
In the last few years there has been an explosion in the...
I have wanted to sound like Rory Gallagher since I was 13...
It is not easy to create an effective guitar practice...
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