The Four Step Blues Method in A

If you feel stuck playing the blues, or your solos fall flat, even if you've been playing for decades, this system will get you out of your rut.

This was the first Soulful Guitar live stream in two years, and I used it to walk through the exact system I've taught thousands of people, the same one I've used on Grammy nominated recordings. Then at the end I answered the three questions I get more than any others.

Step one: start thinking in chords

Most of you are stuck because you're playing the pentatonic scale. That's all fine and good, and it's a great place to be, but for a lot of folks it leaves you wanting more. Like you're stuck. Like you can't express yourself to the fullest.

So start thinking in terms of chords instead.

In the key of A there are really three chord shapes you can use. There's the E shape. There's the one right here. And there's the C shape. All three of them are A.

Then the same three shapes for D. One, two, three. And the same exact three shapes for E. One, two, three.

It takes a second before it sounds like blues. But once it clicks, you're never going to be able to unhear it.

Step two: flirting with the third

The third is a musical term. If you don't know what a third is, don't feel bad, it doesn't really matter in this context. All you have to know is how to locate it visually.

When you're down in that shape, your middle finger is indicative of the third. So you hammer on from the flat third to the third. That's flirting with the third, and it's a really nice way to play a blues.

With the C shape, slide in from a half step below. With the A shape, do the exact same thing, slide in from a half step below.

Right there, just with that, you're able to play a pretty awesome blues solo. It's convincing, and it's following the changes.

There are only three shapes. It's not like you have to learn a million new scales or a million pieces of information. It's right here, and here, and here. Eventually you connect them, flirting with the third on the D, then the C shape, then the E shape.

Soloing this way, following the changes, is taking a page out of Brent Mason on the country side and Joe Pass on the jazz side. You're building on the shoulders of giants. And the giants are Muddy Waters, Freddie King, and of course BB King, which brings us to step three.

Step three: the BB box

If you don't talk about BB King when you're playing a blues solo, there's something wrong with the conversation. You might want to excuse yourself from that conversation.

The BB box is a simple little cell on the neck. Put your first finger on the B string at the tenth fret, so you're on the root note. Go ten, twelve, ten, twelve. Come back down. Hit that F sharp note.

On its own that doesn't really sound like blues. But once you add slides, a couple of bends, and a few chromatic notes, meaning connecting notes in between, all of a sudden it sounds like blues.

The BB box is a master class in minimalism and in call and response. A lot of folks play a lot of notes going up and down the pentatonic, and it sounds okay, but their phrasing goes on and on. It's a run on sentence. You're noodling, you're noodling, you're noodling.

So choose three to five notes and build a nice little solo out of that. Here's your exercise: take an A blues, limit yourself to three to five notes, stay in that one part of the neck, and play a good solo.

Step four: up major, down minor, land major

This is the one that gives people the most challenge, and it's also the most rewarding. Just like in life, the hardest things are often the most rewarding. Lucky for you, I've done most of the hard work already.

When you're playing a shuffle blues, most of you are only getting half the picture. You're playing the minor pentatonic. Fine and good, it sounds good, but it's not the full picture. It's also major.

It sounds weird to do just major or just minor. It sounds incomplete. So you blend them. Go up the major pentatonic, come down the minor pentatonic, and land on the chord. Then do that same exact shape for D, and for E, and come back home.

You can do it for every one of those three shapes. And instead of staying in one scale the entire time, now you're moving with the chord changes. That's a page out of the country players like Brent Mason and the bluesier jazz guys like Robben Ford and Josh Smith.

Having that breakthrough moment of mixing major and minor over a shuffle blues is eye opening for a lot of folks. I've heard back from a lot of you who took the course saying "wow, I never knew that."

Sticking point one: the C shape hurts

Most people are comfortable with one shape or the other, but that little C shape trips a lot of folks up. A lot of people tell me they have arthritis, or they're older, or they just physically can't do that whole bar.

Here's the workaround. As long as you can visualize and see the entire shape, it's okay to play a three note chord instead. That's fine. But you have to be able to visualize the whole thing, and there's really no getting around that part. As you move it up and down the neck it becomes a really, really useful shape.

Sticking point two: it sounds disjointed

The second question I get is "I can piece stuff together all over the neck, but it sounds disjointed. I'm going from this part to this part and jumping all over the place."

The solve is to localize yourself. Give yourself a target. You're only going to play the blues at the fifth fret and below. Or only fifth to ninth. Or only ninth to twelfth.

What that forces you to do is combine all of these different concepts and shapes and make them work in one position. Then you move up and do it again in the next zone. Stay in localized zones and that should fix the problem.

Sticking point three: right notes, wrong rhythm

A lot of folks aren't even aware of this one until I hop on a coaching call with them. They're playing the right notes but the wrong rhythm.

Here's how it happens. They're not using a backing track. They're not using a metronome. They're not filming themselves. They're not keeping themselves honest.

And I get the temptation. You want to pick up your guitar after work, or you're retired and you just want to grab your acoustic and jam along. That's all fine and good. But without accountability you develop bad habits, and I've had to correct a lot of bad habits with folks I coach.

So consistently film yourself, especially in the last five minutes of your practice. Consistently play to a backing track. Consistently play to a metronome. Do those three things and it fixes 99% of the problems.

That's the four step method. Chords, flirting with the third, the BB box, and mixing major and minor. For the same system in a different key, read the four step blues method in G and the full system in E.

Watch the original video: I've Studied 10,000 Hours Of Blues. These Are The Best Tricks You Need

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've been looking for a way out of the pentatonic box for years, check out The Blues Guitar System, my full course. Hours of material, every tab, every backing track, and live streams where you can ask me questions directly.