ULTIMATE Blues-Rock Workout!

Is your blues playing giving you the blues? Fear not, as Andy Saphir is here with the ultimate workout, designed to build your chops and invigorate your practice routine.

- Andy Saphir

Blues is one of those styles that most guitarists love to play. There’s just something about the sound of those Pentatonic-based licks and riffs, and the immediately identifiable musical structures and rhythms that make it so satisfying.

As a player with relatively little experience you can soon learn to play some simple but authentic sounding blues because, at its essence, the style is mainly based around the Minor Pentatonic scale (R- b3-4-5-b7) with additional notes borrowed from the Major Pentatonic too (R-2-3-5-6) which can be used to construct some basic but authentic sounding licks.

However, it would be a glaring misconception to assume that because of this, it should be dismissed as an easy style to play, because it isn’t. As with any genre, there are harder things to play and easier things to play; things that need a high level of technical skill and musical ability, and others that are simpler. Listening to blues players like BB King, who characteristically played quite conservatively but highly emotively, and later players like Joe Bonamassa whose blistering blues-rock licks are jaw-dropping, will give you an idea of how varied blues can be, and how technically and musically demanding it can be, too.