At some point you probably have heard of the blues already. It is a quite popular kind of music that it is even mixed on other contemporary genres making a variety out of it. What makes it more appealing is its characteristic to elicit emotions from the author to the listeners. The blues has been used as a music medium by varieties of artists since time immemorial, making it one of the institutions of the musical science.

For all the years that I have been learning the scales, prominently learning the blues, I have seen the proofs of all these claims about it. Since then, improvising licks and integrating them from one music genre to another has been a habit. One more very interesting thing about the blues is its ability to bend and blend which makes it a very useful tool on scaling. What you basically have to do is to spice it up a bit. I’ll be sharing to you some tips how to do about that. Here are some:

  1. Don’t be discriminate.Listen to as many genres as possible (Punk, Metal rock, RnB, hipHop, etc.). In order for you to have a broader scope in understanding music, you must not be bias on one particular genre you seem preferable with. It hinders your musical growth and bars your appreciation. Music is a very dynamic thing. Sticking to one genre is not truly appreciating the beauty of its dynamics. What’s more saddening is that sticking to one genre makes your preference obsolete in time – a Passe taste. This kind of broadening is essential in tweaking the old blues. From here on you are enabled to manipulate the blues to blend into anything and keeps your blues accent from outdating.

  2. Explore the fret board.
    This requires you to go out of the scale -“Free-versing” as I would like to put it. This means, apart from the regular notes inclusive of the blues scale you already have, try integrating other notes outside of it.  This could be achieved by practicing your bends from often, explore other notes that would provide that “sweet-sync” to your blues. Anything will do in practice. In addition put more back and emotions to it. Be as reflective of yourself or your mood as possible, this helps build an identity in your scale, an essential goal of any lead guitar player to distinguish him from the rest.

  3. Listen to the Pros
    It really helps to listen to those who are better than you, or to those you look up to. I used to view videos or watch DVDs on the performances of best guitar solo artists of our time. I study their licks and try mimicking them then add-up something to it to make it sound a bit different. Trust me. It really helps to learn from them. Also you can jam out with friends or acquaintances that you know knows a lot about scaling. You can ask for some tips from them.

  4. Get a “Feel” to it.
    This is where you practice a lot. Like the saying “practice makes perfect”, the mastery of blues is also grounded of the same principle. Try your scales on blues backing tracks you can download online, even scale those songs you hear from the radio and test those newly found blues licks you were able to discover from trying out of the scale-box. When I was starting out, I used to scale on almost every song that I hear, from backing-tracks to television ads background music (this is highly optional, you don’t have to through the same pain). And when the time comes, you’ll be surprised as to how clean, “blendy” and good-sounding your blues are already.

You can start out anytime. But it is always advisable you start early for earlier progress. So go ahead, get that guitar and work those fingers right away. Try, innovate, create and enjoy.

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