Tag: key of Am

Blues Lick Lesson #09 (C minor pentatonic)

26/09/2021 Lesson No Comments

Here is my 9th blues lick guitar lesson. In this video, I’ll teach you how to play slow, string skipping blues licks C minor. Recommended playing level: intermediate.  

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Blues Lick Lesson #9

1 file(s) 1.77 MB 9436
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Jamtrack

I recorded a short backing track (Cm) for this lesson, you can find it below. If you want a LONG backing track in a similar style (in Am) you can find it in my jam track shop.

About this lesson

I’m proud to present to you my 9th blues lick guitar lesson. This blues phrase is played over a slow blues-rock jam track in C minor (12-8). In this lesson, I focus on atypical licks that either stay on 1 string or skip strings. The licks fit over a turnaround (last 2 bars of a 12 bar blues. chorus) and come from the C minor blues scale (or C minor pentatonic with the blue note). Variation 2 uses hybrid picking and is inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan‘s playing. So you’ll get a hybrid picking lesson for beginners in this video. Enjoy!

Concepts present in this blues lick lesson
  • skipping strings (vertical phrasing)
  • staying on 1 string (horizontal phrasing)
  • legato (hammer-on, pull-off)
  • hybrid picking
  • C minor pentatonic, blues scale – blue note
Gear

*-The guitar used is a Fender 1994 Stratocaster (stock pickups) Amp: Fractal AX8 preset

👉 Check out my gear page on Thomann: gear-thomann.guitar-inspiration.com

Atmospheric Groove Jam Track (Am, 76 BPM)

20/03/2021 Backing Track No Comments

Atmospheric groove in A minor (76 bpm). A dynamic guitar backing track in A minor, with a dreamy, ambient, and bright A-section and a darker B-section. So a slow tempo, but definitely not a ballad. Download the chords & tabs here:

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Atmospheric Groove Jam Track (Chords and Tab)

1 file(s) 295.34 KB 15202
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Gear (+affiliate links)

Blues Lick Lesson #08 (A minor pentatonic)

14/02/2021 Lesson 1 Comment

I’m proud to present to you my 8th blues lick guitar lesson. In this video, I’ll teach you how to play a slow but powerful blues-rock phrase in the key of A minor. Recommended playing level: intermediate.

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Blues Lick Lesson #8

1 file(s) 1.77 MB
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Concepts present in this blues lick lesson
  • alternate picking and legato (hammer-on, pull-off)
  • mixing metrics (playing duplets and quadruplets)
  • A minor pentatonic, pentatonic scale
  • blues bends, expressive blues bends
  • targeting notes like the 9th
Jam Track

Blues Shuffle Backing Track (115 BPM)

Gear

*The guitar used is a Gibson Les Paul (with a Seymour Duncan JB4 pickup and a Duesenberg p90) into an ENGL Screamer 50 Amp, captured with the universal audio Ox. No Pedals Used 🙂

👉 Check out my gear page on Thomann: gear-thomann.guitar-inspiration.com

Dreamy Guitar Solo (Blues, Americana) in Am

31/10/2020 Backing Track, Video Tab No Comments

Funny how music serves as a counterweight. When my life’s busy, I write smooth, slow-burn solos like this one. A Blues Americana guitar solo in A minor, influenced by Mark Knopfler’s playing. Enjoy!

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Dreamy Guitar Solo in A minor

1 file(s) 391.57 KB
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About This Solo

I wrote this minor blues track to express a recurring feeling I experience in Autumn, a feeling of quiet gloom, best felt when talking a walk into the colorful woods this time of the year.

The solo is heavily influenced by Mark Knopfler’s playing. A clean, spacious guitar sound with emphasis on right hand dynamics, the A minor pentatonic and the odd blue note (Eb).I love these slow-burning blues-country-roots licks that you’ll find in Mark Knopfler’s more recent work.

Featured concepts

Expanding on this playing style, I play a few unusual double stops with major second intervals. These are somewhat uncommon on guitar and carry a soft and glassy dissonance that supports the mood here. You’ll notice I create these by letting adjacent strings to ‘ring’ out.

Harmonic Minor Lick
A harmonic minor

Finally, I bring out the colors of the harmonic minor scale in bar 13 (the ‘lazy’ pickup). I like the somber tone of this scale. Venturing into this sound often brings me to diminished triads (look for them in the outro!). The inspiration for these harmonic minor guitar licks comes from listening to gypsy swing artists like Django Reinhardt and Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies).

I hope you enjoy this solo. It feels like something new for this channel. Sometimes making these videos can be really hard work. But for this video, it felt more like surfing on a creative ‘flow’, less strenuous and without (over)thinking too much. Although there must be a bit of suffering in creating art, it’s better when it’s not too much 😉 Let’s see where this mindset brings me in the future. 

Backing Track
If you’re interested, you can purchase a high quality version (WAV CD Master) of this jam track in my Sellfy Store here:
Gear Used
  • Suhr Modern Pro HH
  • Victory V40
  • pedals; Tc Electronic The Spark (booster) – heavily recommended!  I like it so much I have 2 😉
  • Eventide H9 (spring reverb) in the FX Loop
  • captured with Universal Audio Ox
👉 Check out my gear page on Thomann: gear-thomann.guitar-inspiration.com