Term 2 - Lesson 3

 In today's lesson we went over the blues stuff again but instead we did everything in the key of G. This meant that the chords were G, C and D. We revised the structure of 12 bar blues which follows the pattern:



We practised finding the 7th chords in different positions on the neck using the CAGED system again which I am beginning to get the hang of. We successfully played 2 inversions of the 7th chords and then we practised playing them in the 12 bar structure.

Then we learned a blues shuffle riff which was difficult because you have to stretch over 5 frets to play it but I managed it in the end; we also played that in the blues structure. I found that easier than the 7th chords because the changes are smaller.

Finally we put it all together and took turns soloing over the chords using the G minor pentatonic. We practised a famous blues lick and incorporated that in to our solos to make them sound really bluesy and authentic. The lick looks like this in TAB:

E------------3-------|
B---------3-----6---|
G --5b6-------------|

The 12 bar blues structure looks like this:










Lastly we learned that by just changing the starting point of a solo you can make the whole song change from sounding major to minor. This is a very popular but more modern concept in blues, funk, rock and others genres of music. It also depends what chord is playing underneath the solo; for example a major chord will make the pentatonic sound major and a minor chord will make it sound minor.

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