You'll Never Be Good At Blues Soloing Until You Do This

If you struggle to play the blues creatively and with emotion, this lesson is for you. Or if you just wish you could find more to say when you play the blues, this is for you.

My name is Alec Lehrman. I've played on Grammy-nominated recordings and I've taught thousands of people how to play the blues correctly. Today we're exploring something most students have never been taught, and it holds them back for years.

Most people think of a blues as being in a minor key or a major key. So they say, "Oh, A blues — find the A on the low E string, play the pentatonic box, hope for the best." That is no way to solo.

The truth: blues is a combination of both major and minor. And there's a way to play that effectively, every time.

Level 1: Stay in Position

The simplest way to start blending major and minor is to stay in one position of the neck.

Take an A chord shape, then:

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

That's it. You don't move anywhere on the neck. You're just going up one flavor, coming down the other, and resolving to the chord. This is the foundation, and most players never even learn it.

Level 2: Waterfall Down the Neck

Now you start one part of the neck and let the line spill down to a lower position.

Up A major pentatonic from a higher position, transition down through A minor pentatonic, flirt with the third on the way, and land on a lower A chord shape. You're using the same up-major-down-minor principle, but you're using it to traverse the neck, not just to stay parked in one spot.

Doing this even a few times in a solo immediately makes you sound like you actually know where you are on the neck.

Level 3: Climb the Mountain (Super Pentatonics)

The super pentatonic is a way of traversing the neck that gets you out of the little boxes. Instead of five disconnected box shapes, it's one long sliding pentatonic that lets you move from the low part of the neck all the way to the top.

Level three takes the same idea and flips it. You're going up the super pentatonic (major) to climb the mountain, and down the minor pentatonic to come back, landing on the chord.

Three ways to use the major/minor blend:

1. Stay in position (level 1)
2. Waterfall down the neck (level 2)
3. Climb the mountain with super pentatonics (level 3)

Together, these get you out of the box mentality entirely. You stop thinking in pentatonic shapes and start thinking in scales that move across the whole neck.

Bonus: The Hand-Position Tip 95% of Players Miss

After years of teaching, I noticed something physical that almost nobody pays attention to: where your ring finger lives.

When I land in a position, I want my hand to look like this — first finger on the higher string set, ring finger on the lower string set. That hand shape is the launching pad for the cleanest major blues licks. It puts your fingers in the right place to grab major thirds, sixths, and that BB-style high-string playing.

If you land in a position where it's flipped (ring finger high, first finger low), you can stay there for minor moves, but when you want that sweet major sound, shift positions so your hand resolves back to that "ring finger on the low strings" shape. It's a small physical adjustment that pays off massively over a whole solo.

Look down at your hand the next time you take a solo. Take inventory. If your fingers are flying all over the neck with no plan, that's why your phrases feel disconnected. Anchor on that hand shape, and everything starts to lock in.

Watch the original video: You'll Never Be Good At Blues Soloing Until You Do THIS

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.