From Noodling to Pro: Connect Your Chords and Your Solos

If you've been playing guitar for longer than you care to admit and you still can't get your blues solos to sound right, today's lesson is for you.

Most guitarists know the pentatonic shape. And while that shape has made a lot of folks a lot of money, it holds a lot of people back from unlocking their creativity and their confidence. Hint: this is not a pentatonic lesson. This is all about chords.

The real problem: your chords and your solos are strangers

Here's what I see constantly. A player strums their chords, and then when it's time to solo, they jump to a totally unrelated pentatonic shape somewhere else on the neck. The chords are one world, the solo is another, and everything feels disconnected.

The system below solves that problem. Your chords, your solos, everything becomes one idea.

Start with the three building blocks

We're in E blues, which is three chords: E, A, and B. For each one you need three shapes: the open chord, the C shape, and the bar chord.

The C shape is the one most people don't know, and it's the missing link. It looks like a C as you slide up into it. Learn it for E, then rotate the same three shapes through A and B. Those nine chord positions are the map of the entire neck.

Flirt with the third

Once the shapes are down, the most powerful idea in this system is flirting with the third. No theory required. In each shape, one finger is on the third. Go below it, land on it, go above it, resolve.

By itself that's an exercise. With a little phrasing it's a blues solo, and you can play it slow, quick, or fast, then scoot the whole idea up the neck as the chords change. You could make an entire solo out of this one concept, and we still haven't touched a pentatonic.

The BB box is an exercise in restraint

First finger on the root on the B string. In E that's the fifth fret. From there: fourth to sixth fret on the G string, fifth to seventh on the B string, fifth to seventh on the high E. Add a bend, slide down into a flirt with the third, and it starts sounding like blues.

I don't think BB King ever consciously thought "I'm playing the BB box." He was just playing what sounded good. But here's what the box teaches: notice how when I talk, there are commas and periods, pauses and spaces. That's exactly how you should play. A lot of players fill every gap because it feels like confidence. To the listener it's the opposite: overwhelming, and not very pleasing. The BB box strips your playing down to the sweet notes so the space can do its work. Less is more.

Then blend major and minor

The last step is the one that unlocks the pro sound. Blues lives in a gray zone: it's major and it's minor at the same time. So go up the major pentatonic, come down the minor pentatonic with a little blue note, and land major, right on the chord.

Then walk that idea through the progression: the same move over the four chord, the same move over the five. You don't even need all three chord shapes to start. One idea, moved with the changes, already sounds like you know exactly what you're doing.

Sweet Home Chicago, and most Chicago blues like it, is exactly this major plus minor world. If you didn't know that, it's the single biggest reason the blues never quite made sense.

Go deeper on each piece: the full four step system, and chord scale chord for the phrasing framework that keeps the noodling gone.

Watch the original video: EXACTLY How To Go From Noodling To Pro Level Blues Solos

Want to go deeper?

Grab the free Blues Bootcamp. It walks through these concepts with tabs, downloadable PDFs, backing tracks, and a jam with me section.

And if you want the step by step version with comping chords, rhythm, and me answering your questions, check out The Blues Guitar System, my full course.