One of the key qualities that distinguishes great blues players is their ability to 'play the changes' by targeting chord tones in their solos for the chords they're improvising over. Accomplished improvisers can also take simple musical statements (motifs) and develop them into powerful solos that connect creatively and harmonically. In this edition of Jason Loughlin's Blues Connections: Major, you'll learn both of those critical soloing skills for blues progressions in a major tonality.
"A lot of players shy away from the major pentatonic when soloing over a blues because it forces the player to actually 'play the changes', meaning you have to be aware of what chord you're playing over and choose a corresponding scale and arpeggio to match. This can be overwhelming for players who have only improvised with one minor pentatonic and/or a blues scale for the entire tune. The blues scale sounds great, but by not being able to target chord changes you're limiting yourself to painting with one color.”
Blues Connections: Major lays out a system for learning how to solo over changes to add a whole new dimension to your lead playing by focusing on building a language, not just connecting licks. You'll learn how to play major pentatonic scales in all five positions, how to voice lead them, and how to effectively and easily target tones. Jason will also share a variety of powerful improvisational devices that will help you shape powerful and engaging blues solos.
Section 1 covers all of the basics for major pentatonic scales. You'll learn how to build them on single strings, in all five positions, and how to voice lead the scales over a three chord progression.
In Section 2, You'll learn how to apply passing tones like the b3 and b7 and voice lead them over a three chord progression.
Section 3 is called "Highways", where you'll learn the sliding major pentatonic along with the single string scales to help you connect positions and move all across the neck.
Section 4 is dedicated to improvisational concepts; we'll discuss how to creatively develop motifs to get the most out of the simplest ideas.
In the last section, you'll utilize all of the approaches and concepts from the course by working through six solos together with Jason, five of which are dedicated to five position on the guitar and then the sixth solo connects all of the positions."
All of the performances are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop and/or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons. Plus, Jason generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.