This Simple Trick Will 10x Your Blues Solos

If you feel stuck playing in this pentatonic box, today's lesson is for you. Or if you wish you could solo more creatively when you play the blues but you just don't know how, this is for you.

My name is Alec Lehrman. I've played on Grammy-nominated recordings and I've taught thousands of students how to correctly play the blues. And hint: we are not starting with pentatonics. That's how thousands of players get stuck and stay stuck — they start off doing the wrong thing, and 30 years later they're still doing the wrong thing.

We're in the key of E today, going through four levels.

Level 1: Know Your Chords Across the Neck

We're in E, so we have three chords: E, A, and B. You need to know all three positions of each:

• E: open E, E bar chord, and the C-shape E up high
• A: same three shapes, just shifted to A
• B: same three shapes, shifted to B

It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. You just need to see them across the neck, because every level after this is built on top of them.

Level 2: Flirt With the Third

The "third" is a theory term, but here's what it actually is: when you're playing an E bar chord, the note under your middle finger is the third. Flirting with it means you go a fret below, a fret above, and get cute with it. That's where the bluesy sound lives, because blues is neither pure major nor pure minor.

The Hidden Bonus

This is the move that lets you comp and solo at the same time. Most guitar players feel like they have one mode for rhythm — the chords — and a totally different mode for soloing — the pentatonic scale. The two never meet, and the transition feels awkward.

If you start with chords and you solo with the chords, that problem disappears. You can be playing rhythm one second and lead the next, with the same fingerings, the same shapes, the same approach. You're just varying the rhythm and the note count.

Level 3: Blend Major and Minor

Drop the idea that a song is either major or minor. Sometimes that's true — most blues, it isn't. You can play both.

Up E major pentatonic → down E minor pentatonic → land on the E chord.

When the A comes, do it for A. Up A major pentatonic, down A minor pentatonic, land on the A chord. Do it for B.

This is the leap most intermediate players never make. They stay in E minor pentatonic blues land forever. They never learn to follow the changes — to actually shift their major/minor blend as the chord shifts underneath them. Once you do, your playing immediately starts sounding like Josh Smith or Robin Ford instead of like every other YouTube blues lesson.

Level 4: The BB Box

You can't talk about blues without talking about BB King. The BB box lives around the root on the B string. Find your E on the B string, then orbit around it — small bends, hammer-ons, half-step approaches.

You can play the same box an octave up at the 12th-17th fret area for a higher, sweeter version of the same notes. John Mayer, BB King, Eric Clapton all know that area is a home run every time. The notes themselves are not magic — what's magic is how you play them: small bends, soulful timing, leaving space.

Putting It Together

In a single chorus you can:

• Flirt with the third over E
• Slide into the BB box
• Up major, down minor, land on the A
• Back to flirting with the third over B
• Resolve home to E

That's the language of John Mayer, Josh Smith, and Robin Ford — three-chord blues, but with way more creativity than just running up and down the pentatonic box.

The box shape has made a lot of players a lot of money. It's not bad. It's just incomplete. This is how you get out of it.

Watch the original video: This Stupid Trick Will 10x Your 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 so you can actually put this into your hands.

And if you're ready to become the blues guitarist you hear in your head, check out the Blues Guitar System — my full course. Use this link for $50 off.