Blues guitar: bends, slides and phrasing

The blues is the mother tongue of the electric guitar, and of many acoustic ones: from Delta blues (Charley Patton, Son House) to Chicago blues (Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Buddy Guy), and on to rock. The guitar course introduces the blues scale and the expressive techniques. Here we put them to work for improvisation: where the notes to bend are, how to phrase like a singer, and how to accompany another soloist.

1. Two homes on the neck

• Box 1 (fret 5 in A): the foundation of everything. Index on fret 5, ring finger on 7, little finger on 8.
• The B.B. King box: a small territory around the root on string 2 (fret 10 in A). G and A on string 2 (frets 8 and 10), C, C♯ and D on string 1 (frets 8, 9 and 10). It contains the major third C♯, which sounds "sweet" over the A7 chord.

2. The classic bends (in A, box 1)

Before bending, play the target note (for example E, fret 9 on string 3) to get it in your ear. An out-of-tune bend is the first thing an audience hears.

3. The hands' vocabulary, in tab

4. A blues phrase, taken apart

Four bars over A7 then D7 (like bars 3 to 6 of a 12-bar form). Swing the quavers, the first slightly longer than the second, as on the shuffle backing.

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=88
K:A clef=treble-8
"A7"{d}e2 e =g e d A2 | =g a =c' ^c' a4 | "D7"=c'2 a =g f2 d2 | d2 =c A- A4 |]

e |------------------------|--------8--9-------------|-8-----------------------|------------------------|
B |-------5--8--5----------|-8--10--------10~--------|-------10--8--7----------|------------------------|
G |-7b9------------7-------|-------------------------|--------------------7----|-7-----5----------------|
D |-------------------7~---|-------------------------|-------------------------|----------7--(7)~-------|
A |------------------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|------------------------|
E |------------------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|------------------------|

• Bar 1: D → E bend in box 1, then a descent that lands on A with vibrato.
• Bar 2: slide up to the B.B. King box; C (the "blue" third) moves to C♯ (the major third of A7), then rests on A.
• Bar 3: the chord becomes D7. The same C natural is now the chord's seventh, and the phrase falls to F♯, its third.
• Bar 4: back to box 1, ending on a held A.

5. Phrasing like a singer

• AAB form: blues lyrics often follow this pattern (a line, its repetition, the answer). Do the same over 12 bars: a 4-bar phrase, a varied repeat, then a concluding answer.
• Come in after the beat: starting a phrase on the "and" of beat 1, or on beat 2, lets the form breathe.
• One note is enough: a single bend repeated with different rhythms can carry a whole chorus.
• Dynamics: pick harder or softer, near the bridge or over the neck. The tone lives in the right hand as much as in the left.

6. The other half of the blues: shuffle rhythm

When you accompany, play this pattern (the "boogie" or "Jimmy Reed" pattern) on the low strings, lightly palm-muted. One finger alternates between the fifth and the sixth of each chord.

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=96
K:A clef=treble-8
"A7"[A,E]>[A,E] [A,F]>[A,F] [A,E]>[A,E] [A,F]>[A,F] | "D7"[DA]>[DA] [DB]>[DB] [DA]>[DA] [DB]>[DB] | "E7"[E,B,]>[E,B,] [E,C]>[E,C] "D7"[DA]>[DA] [DB]>[DB] | "A7"[A,E]>[A,E] [A,F]>[A,F] "E7"[E,B,]2 z2 |]

Over D, the tab puts B on the open 2nd string; you can also play it at fret 4 on string 3, right next to fret 2.

Step-by-step exercise

1. Start the blues backing in A. For one chorus, play only the D → E bend on string 3, with different rhythms.
2. Next chorus: answer with the string-2 bend (G → A), which concludes.
3. Learn the four-bar phrase above, then improvise a four-bar answer (AAB form).
4. On each chord, find its third: C♯ over A7, F♯ over D7, G♯ over E7. Place it on the first beat of the change.
5. Record a chorus of shuffle accompaniment, then improvise over your own rhythm part.