The Major Blues Style - 14

Verse Example

For this last lesson I have played an improvised verse using some of the techniques discussed in the tutorial and tabbed it out for you to have a go at.

I have included an soundfile of the backing with a click count-in. You can use this to play along to.

I regard the count in and lead-in as important however as, in general, you need to anticipate and be on top of the chord changes rather than waiting for the chord to change and then deciding what to play.

For example the phrase starting at the end of bar 4 anticipates the change to D7 at bar 5.

To get a handle on the lead in I suggest you count
1 - 2 - 3 -
2 - 2 - 3 -
3 - 2 - 3 -
4 - 2 - 3 — in time with the click — i.e. make each beat a triplet.

You then play the lead in on the last 2 beats of the 4th triplet.

When improvising in this style it is often more effective to play short phrases with gaps between and then build to more sustained flurries of notes then drop back down to the short,understated, phrases.

Try to get a bit of "light and shade" into it.

Also try to make each note meaningful - less is often more!

The backing track