If you’re into the fast, blues/rock sounds of Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout, Gary Moore, or that kind of weird Griff Hamlin guy, then this video is for you.

Buckle your seat belts and press play on the video with your guitar in hand…

Right click to download the PDF of the TAB for this lesson. Enjoy and happy shredding.

Today’s video is all about a pentatonic 4 note sequence involving pulloffs. This has been stolen from Jimmy Page by pretty much everyone at some point. I don’t know who Jimmy Page stole it from, but you can bet it was some old blues man…So here’s the video, enjoy. The TAB is below. There isn’t much to the tab so there’s no download version today.

And the TAB:

In order for this to completely make sense, you really should watch the How Vs. What video, and either have watched the Slurs video, or you should already know how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs. There are actually 2 other skills that you need – bends and grace notes. If you don’t know how to do those, don’t worry I’m going to get to that. But today I want to show you just how simple it is for you (yes, you) to play a blues guitar solo…Now, I’ve actually got 3 videos for you today, and they are going to be a LOT of fun to work through.

In this first video, I’m going to demonstrate a 24 bar blues solo in the key of G. I just want you to watch this first, and see what we’re after.

If you need to, download the IPOD or WMV version by right clicking on the links and choosing “Save As…”

In this 2nd video, I’m going to show you the 1st Blues Block. This is where all 4 of the notes come from in the solo you just watched.

Download the IPOD or WMV versions here by right clicking.

Now in the last video, I’ll walk you through how it all goes together. This one is a little longer than the other two, but as you can see, when you break it down into little chunks and work those little chunks, it all comes together pretty easily.

All of these lessons, and a whole lot more like it, are going to be available on Thursday morning at 9:00am Pacific Time in “Soloing Without Scales – The 4 Note Solo.” I’ll have more info as I get it closer to being finished. But keep an eye on your email as I’ll have another lesson coming in a couple of days.

Here’s all the downloads for everything in the last video:

• IPOD version of the video
• WMV version of the video
• MP3 of the solo
• PDF of the Blues Block #1
• PDF of the Solo

Have fun – and as always, leave your comments. Laura and I love to read through them and see how everyone is doing with the lessons.

Griff

Slurs – no not against anyone in particular – but the act of playing a note without articulating it with your pick. This is a HUGE key to playing faster, smoother licks on the guitar. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most misunderstood and under-utilized techniques on the guitar.

Well that ends here. In this video you’ll get all you need to be a slur-master (which is a technical term I believe, and doesn’t necessarily involve beer.)

If you have trouble with it streaming – here are some downloadable versions for you:

• WMV version of the video (right click to save)
• IPOD (mp4) version of the video (right click to save)
• PDF of the musical examples in TAB (right click to save)
• MP3 of examples 1-4
• MP3 of example 5-8
• MP3 of example 9
• MP3 of example 10
• MP3 of example 11
• MP3 of example 12
• MP3 of example 13
• MP3 of example 14

As always, please leave your thoughts below in the comments. I get a lot out of reading them.

This video is about the single biggest challenge learning lead blues guitar. Enjoy and leave your comments below

Video not playing? Right click here to download a WMV version to your computer and watch it from there.

Okay, I did it. I threw my hat in the ring to win a chance to play at the Crossroads Festival in Chicago this summer.

In order to get there, I need votes – a lot of them. That’s where you come in.

Visit http://playcrossroads.com and register to vote by entering your email address and then confirming it (sorry about this step, but they have to know you’re a human – or close enough.)

Then visit http://playcrossroads.com/griff3 and vote for the band there. While you’re there, feel free to listen to some tunes I posted.

That’s it. Thanks and I appreciate the help.
Griff

While to some folks The Blues and Christmas don’t exactly go hand in hand, there have been some truly great Christmas blues songs recorded throughout the years.

Honestly I really didn’t know about this until one of my students brought it to my attentionand I started to investigate further all of the Christmas songs out there done by blues artists.

This particular one, “Merry Christmas Baby” was recorded by Elvis Presley. It’s such a perfect example of one of the Blues Guitar Unleashed lessons at work, that I just had to make a video out of it and show you how it’s put together.

Granted, this is not a note-for-note transcription of the tune, that would be illegal. This is, however, very much in the style of Merry Christmas Baby and is a common idea that could be used for dozens of blues songs. Enjoy and Merry Christmas Everyone!

Downloads:

• IPOD version of the video
• WMV version of the video
• The TAB in PDF

Back in October, my friend Bob Murnahan and I did a live clinic here in So. Cal. Here’s a clip of us jamming for a while during that show. Check out Mr. Spunk burning it up at about 7:20 in… you never knew he had it in him

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s another inspirational one for you.

About a year ago, a guy named Chuck came on board BGU. He was one of the first onto the BGU Member Forum when it started, and has been steadily working his way through the course while sharing moderator duties with John, Mike, and me on the forum.

As a cool way to give himself a little incentive, Chuck wrote a tune called Dark Days and enlisted all of us to play on it. Rather than my long-winded explanation, here’s Chuck’s post about it from the BGU Member Forum:

Happy Birthday Forum Members!  It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already. I’ve met a lot of new friends and have really improved my Guitar playing. Unbelievable!

The Lyrics to “Dark Days” was my attempt to do something like Bob Coult and Russ have been doing here on the Forum. Most of it was written on a long rainy drive home from work. Bob also contributed the 3rd verse in the song.

John, wanted to do a project a couple of months back and “Dark Days” is the result of that.

John did the Drums, Bass, Lead intro, Lead backing on the 3rd Verse as well as the 3rd lead/outro.

The first Lead Break is none other than Griff Hamlin himself! (Wow!)

Mike sang the Lead Vocals and performed the backing lead to the 1st verse.

I played the Rhythm Guitar, Lead backing on the 2nd verse, the 2nd Lead break and Backing vocals.

Turn it up!

And there you have it. Chuck was gracious enough to let me share it with everyone in hopes that you would see how much you can accomplish in a year, and to show what a great community we have of people all working towards playing blues guitar a bit better.

Just right click on the link and save it to your computer, or just click on it and depending on how your browser works it might just play.

Dark Days by the BGU Forum Moderators

While we often talk about how blues is based around 7th chords, those are just suggested chords. In reality you can substitute the 7th chords for 9th chords… and you want to.Here’s a blues in C based around 7th and 9th chords. This one is straight out of lesson 3 from Blues Guitar Unleashed. You probably won’t be able to get the chords just by looking (even a lesson 3 feet away from me can’t see them) so you’ll need to download the PDF of the whole lesson.

In the course I have a slow speed and a full speed play along. I don’t have room for both here so this is full speed. The slow speed audio is below this if you want to download it.

Downloads:

• IPOD of the intro video
• IPOD of the play along
• WMV of the intro video
• WMV of the play along
• AUDIO of slow speed play along
• AUDIO of full speed play along
• PDF of the tune and the chord diagrams.