Bluesy Funk Soul Guitar Solo in Gm

Enjoy this bluesy funk soul guitar solo in Gm, called ‘Look Ahead’. Tabs here:

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About the track

This track is inspired by groovy funk soul tracks from the seventies (for instance: James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Temptations, Albert King, and TV themes like Shaft). I highly recommend to listen to these artists to find inspiration for your own, groovy funk soul guitar solo! The chords in my track follow a basic 12 bar blues with a minor 1 chord (G minor), which adds a Dorian flavor to the track, well suited for a funk track! 

Featured Lick
Classic blues response lick

I really love how blues musicians use call-and-response style licks. One of my favorite, classic ‘response’ style licks is this blues lick in G minor pentatonic. Play it with energy and emotion! In this funk soul guitar solo, I play it around 1:48 (in the video), when the Hammond organ crescendoes to transition to the IV chord.

Gear for this funk soul guitar solo:

I really enjoyed producing this track, although programming a VST instruments ‘groove’ is quite the challenge. There is a great book on how the great James Brown rhythm sections constructed their grooves and how it evolved through the decades, so this was a huge inspiration to write this track and funk soul guitar solo.

Here is all the gear I used:

  • Guitars: Gibson ES-335 (lead), Suhr Modern Pro (rhythm) 
  • Amp: Fractal AX-8, with an Autowah preset.
  • Effects: Eventide Spring, Soundtoys Phaser Mistress (only in part B)
  • Virtual instruments: -Bass: Spectrasonics Trilian -Drums: Steven Slate Drums 5.5 -Keys: XLN Addictive Keys Mark One, Arturia B-3 V2 -Brass: East-West Hollywood Pop Brass, -Violins: East-West Hollywood Strings
  • Extra loops Loopcloud.com
Do like the 80s more than the 70s?

Check out my 80s TV-theme guitar solo here.

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