Take a Solo - The Secrets to Blues & Country Guitar Improvisation
Homespun and guitar great Toby Walker shows you how a blues or country guitarist creates a great solo, thrilling the audience and getting nods of approval from fellow musicians. How does this happen? How do you even start figuring out which notes to play in the midst of a song or jam session? Just watch and see!
Videos
• Chapter 1 (03:10) - Toby and Happy give us a nice performance before describing what we'll be learning in this series.
• Chapter 2 (05:52) - In this video, Toby starts off with a common chord progression, the "12 bar blues".
• Chapter 3 (02:52) - Toby emphasises the different changes between his soloing and Happy's rhythm parts. They switch things up by playing each others parts and showing you how to learn these parts with some great examples.
• Chapter 4 (08:50) - In this video, Toby adds in the major third and takes this progression to a new level. Toby and Happy give more examples to follow along with.
• Chapter 5 (05:47) - Toby talks about hammer-ons and how to approach these for the first time. Toby talks about rhythmic attitude, and how to get that "feeling" in your playing styles.
• Chapter 6 (04:45) - So far, we've been in the key of A. In this video, Toby moves the same licks we've been practicing into the key of G.
• Chapter 7 (10:03) - Toby talks about "Lightning Hopkins" and the "Shuffle Beat" in the key of E. Toby and Happy keeps things slow so that you can follow along.
• Chapter 8 (11:41) - In this video, Toby shows you what a "C Box" and a "B.B. King Box" is. Toby shows you a few B.B. King licks that you can take home for your collection.
• Chapter 9 (08:25) - Toby shows you how to move from one "shape" to another, and then gets you comfortable with moving from box to box.
• Chapter 10 (13:11) - In this video, Toby teaches you a lick in the minor pentatonic scale, and plays it against a few different scales showing the contrasting sounds the scale can have depending on what it's being played over.
• Chapter 11 (05:52) - Toby and Happy move things up a few frets to the key of D. After a nice performance, they take the lick down to each part and show you how to do it!
• Chapter 12 (07:17) - Toby and Happy move across some different chords and show what boxes he's using and then shows you how to follow along.
• Chapter 13 (05:16) - Toby talks about some guitar pick options, then shows you how they sound with different styles of playing. Toby ends things with some final words for the road.