Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Learn a Jazzy, Blues Composition That You Can Play By Yourself on Guitar – Blues Guitar Lesson – EP289

Description

In this week’s lesson, you’ll learn a solo blues composition (no accompaniment required) that isn’t the typical 1, 4, 5 blues format. This has a jazzy chord arrangement to keep things interesting and give you ideas for other ways to play the blues (similar to Lonnie Johnson’s approach). This also uses the “call & response” technique to allow you to alternate back and forth between chords and lead. Los of takeaways in this one!

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walk-Through

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  1. Biker13 says

    Really beautiful Brian. One of my favorite solo lessons you’ve ever done (and that’s saying something). I honestly don’t know how you do it – week after week. Always another beautiful composition. Happy New Year!

    • Joe W says

      Hey Brian, this is a great lesson. I have learned a lot from it. Love the blues, It will take awhile to get it down, but most importantly I’m learning different ways to look at things.

  7. Colin L says

    I love the 1940s and earlier blues and jazz, this is exactly what I was looking for. Can you do a Charlie Christian inspired lesson soon? BB King often said his two biggest influences on how he played guitar were T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian. Unfortunately Charlie died very young from TB, so we only have a few dozen recordings of his music.

  9. JoLa says

    Hah, you thought about taking off during the holidays (nice try 😉) and then you just noodle around the night before and come up with something so delightful?! Only an incredibly talented song writer can do that, not to mention the fantastic lesson you made for us! And then you actually have done it every single week for the last 6 or so years! 😲Brian, you will never cease to amaze me and I LOVE the fact that you are just as addicted to your weekly lessons as I am (as many of us are). Hope you are enjoying the holidays and looking forward to another amazing year with Active Melody! Thank you, Brian, you rock! ❤️

  13. mike jams says

    another amazing lesson , can’t wait to learn this one.
    i’m very glad to be part of the Active Melody music train.
    i have learned more in the last couple of years than i have the prior 25 years.
    the theory and logic behind the songs really helps me be more creative on my own.
    keep up the great work, looking forward to a fun 2019

  23. phil l says

    that is good!!!!
    it can be played bluesy or jazzy too, keeping the same stucture of chords with jazzy notes
    I really enjoyed
    thanks Brian for all your good working.
    the best for 2019

    phil

    from France

  24. charjo says

    So many takeaways in this little lesson! It occurred to me that your little X pattern is a 1-6-2-5 turnaround. Thanks for another great year. All the best in the New Year and looking forward to another year with Active Melody.
    John

  25. Mark M says

    What a great lesson. I agree with many of the other comments. You wow me week after week creating lovely melodies and little leads with a minimum of effort. Explaining how the licks come out of chord shapes has taken my playing to another level. Playing doesn’t have to be that complicated if a person understands where the tune is coming from, and where it’s going next. Thanks Bryan

  33. Ted D Boy says

    Brian, you have done it again, I absolutely loved this lesson!!! I couldn’t put my guitar down till I had it completely sussed out..
    Keep up the good work, you are my guitar teaching Hero.
    Thank you once again & a happy New Year from Safety Bay Perth Western Australia.

  34. DerekBlue says

    Thanks Brian. I know its a labor of love. I’m sure the composition for you is the easy part. Then you have to produce it into a lesson. Appreciate your work ethic. It pays off or all of us out here in the happy struggle. Great piece this week.

  37. Iman A says

    Brian,
    Happy new year with best wishes for you, your family, Students and followers.
    More than 2 years i have been your follower and learned lots of things
    Appreciate for your kind attention and teaching.

  40. ben4given says

    I love these call and response type lessons. They are especially good for me since I primarily play alone. Unfortunately my acoustic guitar gets a bit crowded for my dainty fingers to make bar chords that far up the neck. I’ve been working on transposing down a few frets.

  42. Ian C says

    What a fabulous lesson. Cool sound and introduces lots of learning points. Also, I really love these lessons which address chords across the fretboard and ‘force’s us to put caged into practice.

  51. Frankie Cole says

    Always “GREAT Lessons”. This is the reason I’ve kept my membership . Even though, I haven’t been able to play my guitar for little over a year (15 months).
    So, I just filed ALL of your lessons for future USE. Yes, was GOOD and now “GREAT Stuff”, just keep it coming and Happy New Year. Frankie Cole, Prime Member

  55. philippe aka philswolf S says

    … a really classy little jazz flavored blues, Brian …and really instructive at that !!!…I really dug the X trick, and how one can shift the chord around a note …as the 6th of the D becomes the 9th of the coming A chord…enlightening, and so well illustrated…I’ll definitely keep my premium membership…
    …All the best to the ActiveMelody team for the new year…
    …A wish : – more jazz, please !!! “My Funny Valentine” is worth a lesson, don’t you think ?
    Greetings from Geneva, Switzerland…

  59. John G says

    Hi Brian, thoroughly enjoyed this weeks tune. Can’t stop playing it. While I can see the ‘back cycling’ i.e. 6, 2, 5, 1, I’d be grateful if you would share some insight into the progression. Thanks, John

  62. Dennis R says

    I am a new member. I really like what you are doing and especially lessons like this that teach a composition. It’s nice to be able to play a cool song. I hope you do more of these.

    Thanks,

    D.

  63. DaveR says

    Brian, this lesson is a beauty – working my way through it. Could you do a Part 2? It feels like it could use another section or bridge to follow about measure 17.

    Thanks for all these lessons – much appreciated!!!

  70. Alexandre F says

    This is a beautiful song to end this winter and start with a lovely spring afternoon or at least it´s what it comes to my mind so emotively with the variety of chords and composition sure it´s a pleasure for me being able to play this song for now to amuse myself as in the future for my personal growth as a guitar player.

  73. Dag J. says

    You can do MORE like this one, Brian–love it!! After Classic Rock and Blues, my love for Jazz guitar is growing (as is my vocabulary of Jazz-style chords and licks, and this dovetailed nicely into what I’m learning now. I recently adapted this piece to a fingerstyle acoustic version, with a few embellishments, and slowed it down a touch–soul music! Keep it coming, Sir!

  74. Dag J. says

    You can do MORE like this one, Brian–love it!! After Classic Rock and Blues, my love for Jazz guitar is growing (as is my vocabulary of Jazz-style chords and licks), and this dovetailed nicely into what I’m learning now. I recently adapted this piece to a fingerstyle acoustic version, with a few embellishments, and slowed it down a touch–soul music! Keep it coming, Sir!

  75. helmut says

    Cool piece of music that I like a lot. This will be my
    starting point at ActiveMelody. Very nice and moving chord structure.
    Brian, Thanks for the great work I will ddig into it.

    Helmut

  76. Jim K says

    Brian,

    Every once in a while I find myself tapping my foot to your compositions, this is one and definitely one I want to learn, just great Brian. Thank You, Jim

  77. Les Brown says

    Stunning lesson. I use several online teachers, and they’re all great in their own way. But yours is by far the best value for the material, and the most compelling and fascinating method of instruction. Original compositions that are filled with fretboard understanding and navigation. You open up the neck like no one else. “First let me show you how to play it, then I’ll show you how to think about it.”

    Excellent. And the material is always beautiful. I can’t sing your praises enough, Brian. But you play them VERY well…

  78. donna p says

    Brian, Love when you bring back these really cool compositions! Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised that I could not play them the first time around,
    but this time they make sense and I can play them:) Thanks for all your work on this great website!!!

  81. Peter B says

    I absolutely love this lesson, as I can see do many others. It is probably my favourite so far, although there are many rivals. I am learning so much from your lessons Brian. You explain everything so simply and well, so that what seems difficult at first becomes easy to grasp. It’s rare that someone as obviously gifted as you is able to pass on their knowledge in such a modest way. You treat your students as equals and your enthusiasm for music and the guitar is infectious. Please produce more lessons like this one.

    • Cliff Carbaugh says

      Brian, I am already ‘booked-up’ for the next several years trying to learn a few of your lessons and now you just added another several months on me to try to learn this lesson as well! Don’t you ever take a break from coming out with beautiful lessons to extend my sentence of months and months of fumbling? I try to get my playing to sound like something that you make look so easy but takes me months and months to resemble what you play just a little bit! I already have several years’ worth of lessons from you that, being a little elderly already- don’t know how much time I’ll be able to keep struggling with them!

      • Harry G says

        Cliff, rather than thinking of it as a struggle, think of the progress you are making, however small . We all learn and progress at different rates. I am in my 70s and I know I will never reach the skill level of Brian and many other great guitar players like him, but I get great enjoyment and satisfaction from Brian’s teaching and if I can play a little bit better today than I did yesterday, that’s great! Good luck with your practicing and your progress and enjoy every moment.

  86. Harry G says

    Brian, I keep coming back to this lesson and every time I do I learn something new and bits that I can use elsewhere. I like the jazz blues lessons and although challenging for me when I first hear them, you make it much easier for me to learn and understand them. Thank you.

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