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Post subject: Stratocaster Blues
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:10 pm
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This is going to sound utterly rediculous, but I cannot get a blues sound out of my strat, its not the pickups, its not my amp, its not my overdrive, its me. I can play slower blues stuff, but I just don't know any actual licks at a decent speed, my friend picked up my guitar and just pulled some real bluesy sounding licks. I'm talking Muddy Waters kind of decent improvised solos, its really annoying me as i'm pretty sure its not my technical abilities but that I just haven't worked any of them out. Please help me


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:11 pm
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Patience, and Practice.... LOTS of practice.

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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:13 pm
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i practice plenty, its just i need the notes :P


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:15 pm
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As you play more they will come to you. You have to hear them before you can play them

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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:18 pm
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Strat on the neck pickup then practice, practice, etc., etc. One of the coolest things on guitar is learning which notes to not play.


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:15 pm
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do you know all five positions of the pent Blues scale ???

if you do play along with your favorite Blues dudes (on cd) or get a jam session going with ones you know and just go through the scales and find the bends and trills and vibratos and the next thing ya know, its the Blues.

its not really that hard, thats why the snob players look down their noses at it, however it is the best way I know to express your real self using the guitar, all that fancy stuff is just stuff.

try to imagine the hardest thing you have been through and then talk about it through your Strat.


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:01 pm
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those snob players are never that great anyway really... i mean they can memorize alot, i will give them that, but the rest is just practicing playing the same thing over and over. i thinks that kind of boring.

i say just forget all the scales and crap, you got four notes on one string you can hit without changing position and just go from there. think about jimi hendrix and how he just played.... thats what you want. efortless and not thinking about it. play the strings with imagination and pull the sounds out of them and use the artifacts and strange sounds you get to your advantage and learn to control them. once you can just play and not think about what your doing or questioning your next move then start watching guitarist and fingure out some of the little tricks, theres always a new little trick to learn.

another thing is memorize the fretboard so you will know what a note will sound like before you play it. try just picking random notes in your head and try to play it on the fretboard on your first guess.


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:23 pm
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switch your pickup switch to the two top single coils and turn one of there tones way down add some distortion and your on your way. :wink:

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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:49 pm
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Chose your postions wisely......they can make a huge difference


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:16 pm
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Try playing with stuff like Albert King until you get it. Grab a lick and drill yourself.


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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:31 pm
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another thing is memorize the fretboard so you will know what a note will sound like before you play it.


This is what playing scales does in addition to teaching you what notes will sound best together.


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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:25 am
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learning the full range of the minor blues scale is one of the best ways I know how to get a new player to get to the point were they can improvise a blues solo.

yes it is mechanical at first, however it begins to come alive as we put our feelings into it and it becomes second nature.

yes there are those who recieve the Gift and play with no formal instruction at all, I for one am not one of those, I had to work hard to be able to do what I do.

then learn the major pent. scale and mix em up, Thats what Clapton does !
and so many other great artists we all love.

The strat, a good tube amp and a little knowledge are all ya need to make some Blues.

or a Tele will do very nicely too !!!


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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:18 pm
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Learning the minor pentatonic and blues scales helped me a lot as a blues newbie. Then I learned some techniques for getting out of a single box by shifting positions to alternate pentatonic boxes. That was really helpful. Lately, I've been working in a bookcalled "blues lick factory" or something. It basically takes hundreds three, four, and five note licks and helps you use 'em to hit "target notes" for each chord. It's helped me break out of the pentatonic box a bit better.


Mostly, though, blues is feeling and attitude. It's being expressive with bends, vibrato, and stuff. It's tension between major and minor tonality. It's beauty in simplicity.

And that's why I LOVE the blues.


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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:40 pm
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well ok but im not gonna pretend to know what the heck you guys are talking about, maybe learn some scales then.. i just feel like when all you practice is scales when your learning then they become like a safety net that you can get stuck in, which is a bad thing to me.. i hate that feeling.

i mentioned jimi hendrix cus to me he was kind of mixing the blues with like a free jazz kind of attitude that i liked. like no rules like miles davis used to do in the 50's and early 60's.


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Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:00 am
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Well, you gotta KNOW the rules before you can break 'em. Does that make sense? Miles Davis could be so free because he had done his time within the rules. The funny thing about extreme jazz (like Davis) is it's usually the most advanced training in a music program.

What knowing your scales and stuff does for you is give you a frame of reference for your creativity. The pentatonic scale is pretty fundamental for everything in guitar. The blues scale just adds a note or two to it.

Let's say you're playing the blues in A. The notes of your A minor pentatonic scale would go something like this:

e -----------------------------------------5--8-------------
B ----------------------------------5--8--------------------
G ----------------------------5--7--------------------------
D --------------------5---7---------------------------------
A -------------5---7----------------------------------------
E -----5--8------------------------------------------------

Try just messing around with this set of notes for a while and see what it does for you. Later, add in a couple extra notes:


e ----------------------------------------------------5--7--8--
B ---------------------------------------------5--8------------
G -----------------------------------5--7--8------------------
D -------------------------5--7--9----------------------------
A ---------------5--6--7--------------------------------------
E -----5--7--8-----------------------------------------------



Adding the blue notes turns your minor pentatonic scale into a blues scale (in music theory, it's called the flatted 5th, often called the "blue note" by jazz and blues players). Adding the red notes makes your minor pentatonic a hexatonic scale often used by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

Like I said, fiddle around with these two scales and see if that helps you in your quest for the blues.


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