The Exact Way Pros Play Blues Solos: The Full Four Step System

If you wish you were more confident when you go and take a blues solo, this one is for you. If you're like most blues guitarists, you feel stuck in the pentatonic box. That box has made a lot of people a lot of money, but it stifles a lot of creativity and it can feel very limiting.

This is the exact system I teach all my students, the one I've used on Grammy nominated recordings. It's four steps, and this is the deepest walkthrough of it on the blog. We're in the key of E.

Step one: forget the pentatonics, learn the chords

Step one is actually forgetting the pentatonics. Everything gets based on chords. That might be a new concept, but it's the foundation of the whole system.

In E blues you have three chords, the 1, 4, and 5: E, A, and B. And for each one you need three shapes: the open chord, the C shaped version, and the bar chord. Practice them nice and slow, then rotate: 1, 4, 5, 4, 1, visualizing each shape up and down the neck.

Step two: flirting with the third

Here's where it turns into music. Flirting with the third is the concept my students love most, and you don't need any music theory to use it.

In each chord shape, one of your fingers is sitting on the third. All you do is get cute with that note: go below it, land on it, go above it, and resolve. On its own it's not music. With a little flair it absolutely is.

Each of the three shapes has its own flirt. In the first shape it's under your first finger. For the C shape, slide the whole chord in from a half step below and keep just the third and the root under your pinky and middle finger. For the third shape, slide in and highlight the top two strings.

Then combine all three across E, A, and B. We haven't touched a pentatonic yet, and you can already craft an entire solo. That's the power of this step.

Step three: the BB box

Put your first finger on the root on the B string. In E, that's the fifth fret. That's home for the BB box, and you'll want to end most of your phrases on that root.

Here's the real lesson of the BB box: it's a master class in doing less. A lot of players feel like they have to fill up all the space, and honestly, that's the telltale sign of an intermediate. The BB box strips out the BS. It's all the sweet notes, so you can play a simple phrase, repeat it, and take your hand off the guitar while the band breathes.

Put on a backing track, choose one simple phrase, build on it, and leave space. That's the exercise.

Step four: mixing major and minor

This is the step that trips the most people up, so here it is nice and simple.

A blues shuffle is major and minor at the same time. That's distinct from a minor blues like The Thrill Is Gone, where you stay minor. Over a shuffle, 99 percent of players are only playing minor pentatonic, which means they're missing half the colors in the palette.

The move: take the C shape, go up the major pentatonic, come down the minor, and land on the chord. Start on the chord, end on the chord. Then move that same shape through A and B as the changes go by.

The world becomes your oyster

Chords. Flirting with the third. The BB box. Mixing major and minor. Once you combine all four, your solos stop being guesses and start being a system. One lick built this way has endless potential, because you can move it anywhere and anchor it to any chord.

Two companion reads: the four levels as a daily practice routine, and the slow breakdown of mixing major and minor.

Watch the original video: The EXACT Way Pros Play Blues Solos (Copy This)

Want to go deeper?

This lesson is the free version of what The Blues Guitar System covers in depth: the same four steps with more examples, tabs, backing tracks, and me answering your questions.

Not ready for the course? Grab the free Blues Bootcamp and start there.