We’ve previously covered B.B. King’s soloing style in both free lessons and premium guitar lessons. This week we released two new videos that continue our discussion on using the B.B. “box position”. In these lessons we’ll focus on licks from the Major Pentatonic Scale. We’ll use an upbeat groove in Bb as our backing track and learn a couple of 12 bar solos. Jody will teach you how to play each solo in detail making sure understand the concepts and techniques being used. Check out the lessons page for more info or watch the demo below.
Jody Worrell has just released the third installment of his Blues Standards Rhythm Lesson series. You will learn how to play rhythm guitar parts for three popular blues songs:
Before You Accuse Me: Originally written by Bo Diddley then reintroduced to the public through Eric Clapton’s Unplugged performance and subsequent live shows.
It Hurts Me Too: Basically a traditional song that was recorded early on by Tampa Red and then Elmore James. More recently it’s been covered by Eric Clapton and Keb Mo. Jody also has two lessons that will teach you how to play solos over It Hurts Me Too
Help Me: The tune is pretty similar to the blues instrumental “Green Onions” but is credited to Sonny Boy Williamson and Willie Dixon.
For each song Jody will teach you the chords and some strumming and rhythm tips. You can get a feel for it from the demo. To get this lesson or parts 1 and 2 check out the product page
Somewhere between beginner lessons and soloing, rhythm guitar often gets lost in the guitar instruction world. So most guitarists are left to finding chords for their favorite songs and then creating or mimicking strum patterns and other techniques. Our newest premium lesson, Blues Standards Rhythm Lesson 1, hopes to help fill that void. In the lesson Jody walks you through playing rhythm for three blues tunes (Cold Shot, The Thrill is Gone, and Baby Please Don’t Go). The songs come from our Let’s Jam! Blues Standards collection and this downloadable lesson includes 90 second sampler .mp3s of those jam tracks. During the video Jody will discuss his right hand and left hand techniques. In addition to strum patterns the use of muting/choking can provide much of the feel for a rhythm guitar part. Through the teaching of the songs, Jody will show you the tips that will help improve your overall rhythm playing for any song. Watch the demo video below or view the lesson page for more details.
The newest edition of our Let’s Jam Series of jam tracks features a collection of blues songs every guitarist should know. Let’s Jam! Blues Standards covers tracks that B.B. King, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and other blues guitar heroes made famous. The included tracks are Before You Accuse Me, Cold Shot, The Thrill is Gone, Baby Please Don’t Go, Crosscut Saw, Help Me, It Hurts Me Too, Pride and Joy, Smokestack Lightnin’, and Third Degree. Each tune is roughly four minutes long and features rhythm guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. Making it the perfect practice for you to work on new soloing ideas. You can also use it to work on rhythm when it’s not possible to practice with other musicians. Check out the product page for audio samples of each song. The included book contains chord charts, progression, suggested scale for soloing, and one tabbed out lick for each track.
Guitar Player has a good article on five insights into Roy Buchanan’s guitar style. It’s a collection of quotes from Roy, tips by the author, and a listening guide. An excerpt:
Roy Nichols once asked Buchanan, “Where’d you get them bird sounds, Roy?” Guitar lore has it that Buchanan recorded the first pick harmonic (Buchanan called ’em “whistlers”) on “Potato Peeler,” a 1962 single he cut with Philly-based drummer Bobby Gregg. (True story: An unsuccessful online search for a reissue of the full song finally located an excerpt of the legendary moment … as a ringtone!!) Buchanan chalked up the prehistoric event to a happy accident in several of his GP interviews: “How I first did that harmonic thing was actually a mistake, and I only did it once so you have to really listen for it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was trying to hit one of those high notes that R&B sax players like Junior Walker and Plas Johnson would always hit. I thought we were going to have to do another take, but everybody was digging that one thing, so I just figured out what I did and I’ve been doing it ever since. You have to have a lot of treble to do it. As you pick the string, you let a little bit of the skin from the thumb touch the string with the pick. You’ve got to do it with pressure— you can’t do it easy—and it works best on the thinner strings.” (For the scientific lowdown on pick harmonics, see “Demystifying Harmonics,” in the May 2008 GP).
Our own Roger “Hurricane” Wilson has a three part series on playing like Roy Buchanan. The videos touch on both Roy’s country and blues sides. Check out a demo for lesson 3 from the series below
We’ve previously covered B.B. King’s soloing style in both free lessons and premium guitar lessons. This week we released two new videos that continue our discussion on using the B.B. “box position”. In these lessons we’ll focus on licks from the Major Pentatonic Scale. We’ll use an upbeat groove in Bb as our backing track and learn a couple of 12 bar solos. Jody will teach you how to play each solo in detail making sure understand the concepts and techniques being used. Check out the lessons page for more info or watch the demo below.
