Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

How to write a stand-alone guitar composition – I’ll show how I created this blues – EP474

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to create your own stand-alone guitar compositions (solo guitar). I’ll show you how I constructed this blues composition as an example.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walkthrough

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Comments

  13. Michael T says

    Thank you for another fascinating lesson.

    On an unrelated note,…that’s quite a record collection. I’ve never heard you mention it. Do you ever pull one out, and give it a listen?

  14. Daniel H says

    Brian, fact is you could use this title on 80%+ of your lessons. I think you just couldn’t come up with a name for this composition! Anyway, this is why I am into my third year with Active Melody. You consistently teach the underlying mechanics of improvisation. I am so glad I found AM and my only regret is I didn’t find it sooner. Maybe it’s because “when the pupil is ready the teacher will appear”. I thank god you were that teacher.

  15. brian-belsey says

    Interesting to have a lesson with this emphasis on the creative process, with a very nice short piece which is worth getting under the fingers.

    That old Martin sings so sweetly and sustains beautifully doesn’t it?

  16. charjo says

    Brian,
    Thanks to you I have come to see licks and phrases around chord shapes but this lesson is, also, a treasure trove of transitions between chords. I think that is something that takes us to the next level and something I need to catalogue for myself. Could be an interesting slant for the focus of a lesson.
    John

  17. Torquil O says

    I get an American primitive blues art feel to this piece. Love the honest simple sound that guitar provides!
    More of this would be great. Nice in the family arrangement with a few outliers😎

  19. Paul N says

    This lesson, along with the Circle of Fifths lesson, really helped me Brian. I would not mind more lessons along this line of song composition. I’m still a little confused on “stealing a chord”. Is that basically where you talk about using the fifth of the fifth ?

  21. Robert G says

    Hi, Brian,
    Brilliant!
    Thanks for referring this lesson back to the other lessons; I regularly revisit the Essential Theory courses to ground myself in the basics, and practical lessons like this one help to bring it all together.
    Nice tune, by the way, I’m going to add this one to my repertoire.

  22. john m says

    Your lessons are great Brian. Technically I find I can play most things you put out. Its the phrasing that does not seem to stick. Its difficult to know if this is a fault I need to work on, because I love your phrasing. But is that just human nature and if you heard my phrasing slightly different you would find it had as much musical validity? Is this normal?

    • Daniel H says

      I “second” John’s question! But I have chosen to focus more on the relationship between chords and scales within the composition that Brian explains to us in every lesson. Brian’s phrasing is awesome, but I have found myself improvising more spontaneously by trusting my own phrasing rather than trying to match Brian. I used to torture myself trying too duplicate his phrasing, but when I finally accepted my own phrasing that sounded right, it liberated my progress.

        • David LC says

          I am replying to both prior comments.
          Brian has consistently said throughout his lessons that the point he is trying to get across to us, his students, that we should not do a “monkey see, monkey do” memorization but to be able to understand the underlying song, chording, and creation process and to make the songs our own.
          At least that is what I have taken away from the nearly three years I have been lucky enough to have found AM.
          For evidence, I offer JJ Cale playing with Eric Clapton. You got to know the song and the changes, but those two top tier players are not mimicking one another. Listen to what I mean. https://youtu.be/gaT5O72-CnY
          Torture is usually a personal kind of thing,

    • sunjamr says

      A lot of people just noodle around with the jamtrack and hope that some interesting phrase will randomly appear, as if their fingers will just know what to do. But lately I’ve learned this trick: I lay my guitar down for a few minutes and loop the section of the jamtrack that needs a good phrase. Then I either hum or just create a melody line in my head as it plays. Next I grab my guitar and work out how to play that melody line on the fretboard. It goes along with that famous saying “If you can’t hum it, you can’t play it.”

      • David LC says

        What I have found is useful in my learning different tunes is to write out all the chords, add in the beats per measure, make sure the changes are in the right place and I can play them.
        Then I work on adding bits of the melody into the chord structures I talk about in the sentence before.
        Throw in some scales, riffs I remember, and somehow, with enough practice, it comes together for me.

  23. Raymond P says

    Another great lesson Brian. And more like this would be great. It’s also very helpful when you explain your thought process to us. It quite often gives me a better understanding of how the chords, scales and licks all work together.

    Thanks again Brian,
    Ray

  24. Francisco Marto says

    Indeed a perfect lesson! When you talk about a family of chords and the stealing of a chord, I am curious to know what rules exist. For example what do you think of this structure: G-F#m-G-E7-A7-G-D7-G. The second F#m is rather strange (ouside the family?), but to my ear it sounds a little sad but nevertheless okay.

  25. Nick Ll says

    What a fantastic lesson! This is one of the best yet, and there are so many great lessons on this site. Thanks you again Brian.

    I have a question about where the line is drawn between borrowing and plagiarising. I ask it here, though I’ve long thought about it, because in this lesson Brian is encouraging us to be creative and write our own songs and everyone will have their own interpretation of what is involved in creating one’s ‘own song’.

    At about 2:30 into the second (premium members’) video Brian says something like “you can steal from me, I steal from…”. Now there is a whole range of creative elements involved in these pieces, ranging from note intervals (scales/modes), licks and riffs, chord progressions etc. right up to entire melodies and whole song structures. If someone were to take pretty much a whole lesson’s song structure, write their own lyrics and melody and play the chordal structure and licks as the accompaniment to the ‘new song’, is that stepping over a line with regard to the creative process, or is that acceptable? Is it simply a case of crediting (naming) the source? It seems such a grey area, as many high profile court cases have demonstrated and I guess it only becomes an issue when someone is seen to be profiting from using all or part of an original composition, even assuming such a definitive source can be identified.

    Thoughts?

    • Nick Ll says

      P.S. Did anyone else notice that the video lesson (with the tabs shown on screen on the two videos) ends on bar 36, whereas the pdf tablature ends on bar 27? I assume there is just a repeat instruction missing somewhere from the latter?

    • David LC says

      That part about “line is drawn between borrowing and [plagiarizing]” is often in the eyes of the beholder.
      If you can steal everything that Brian shows us, and you make a ton of profit because you stole it just remember to give Brian credit in the album notes and send him some royalties along the way.

  27. Jere R says

    I wish someone had shown me how the caged system worked 50 years ago….wow, this lesson blew me away, especially how to slide from one chord to the next using different shapes. Thanks Brian

  28. Bill M says

    Hi Brian,
    Great lesson as always. One question, in measure 13 where you say you are using F# major scale and descending in thirds, I don’t see how the final triplet is from that scale (e and g# instead of f to g#). Did I misunderstand what you were saying? Thanks!

  36. Bill B says

    Brian, this was so insightful! I’ve always steered away from writing because it just seems so confusing with endless possibilities and no formal direction. Would love to see more lessons of this type. As always, you’ve done a fantastic job here.
    Thank you

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