How To Use Aggressive Blues Double Stops To Make Your Blues Guitar Playing Sound Killer
Stop using the same generic blues double stop patterns over and over! By doing this, you are only limiting your creative potential and making your blues guitar playing sound 'just like everyone else'.
Instead of doing this, you need to learn how to make your own unique, creative and highly aggressive blues double stop licks. To do this, you must combine bends and vibrato with your double stops in a way that most guitarists have never even considered.
Watch the video below now and find out how you can start playing killer blues double stops that will make your blues guitar playing sound totally badass:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
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Question: Should You Learn To Play Blues Guitar Alone Or With A Teacher?
Every guitar player wonders this at some point in their advancement as guitarist.
Do blues guitarists need to work with a teacher too, or is this only for rock/shredder types who want to get virtuosos skills?
Answer:
Taking guitar lessons is absolutely the best choice to improve your skills, no matter what style you play in.
It’s especially helpful for blues guitarists because it opens the door to many things that such players overlook (such as techniques, scales or skills that are not normally considered “blues”, but actually sound great in this style!
You make an incredible amount of improvement in your blues guitar skills by taking lessons with an awesome guitar teacher who has already shown other players just like you how to take their playing to a new dimension.
That said:
What is it about working with a guitar teacher that makes getting better remarkably easier than learning everything by yourself?
There are actually lots of reasons why, but among the most essential is that a guitar instructor gets rid of all the uncertainty involved in becoming a much better guitar player.
Unsure of what to work on to get better at soloing in 12 bar blues? Wondering why you are unable to play that one cool blues guitar lick you're always messing with? Your guitar teacher will help you learn these things, so you can immediately improve upon them.
That's not all:
Your guitar teacher also helps you improve your playing in subtle ways you just never would've considered by yourself (or found online) because of their expertise.
Don't wait to begin taking guitar lessons.
The longer you wait, the longer it takes to attain your musical goals and become the guitarist you wish to be.
Begin today and make a breakthrough in your guitar playing like never before by taking lessons. Here are just a few examples of how my own students’ musical lives have been changed by taking lessons:
“I just love guitar lessons with Tom, he literally takes the time to make a specific lesson plan and sends you lessons as you need it.”
My last lesson I took with a local guitar teacher before joining Tom, I was struggling with a sweep picking pattern, which was the 5 string root major, I was really struggling to get the rolling technique down. I took it to my guitar teacher and I was like “Help me with this, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” This is his exact phrase: “At high speeds, it doesn’t really matter if you can play it clean or not, no one can hear it anyway.” At that point, I was just like, “Ah man.” But thankfully, in that same message, he mentioned Tom’s name. Then the doors opened. That very night, I went home and looked at every single lesson Tom had, had my guitar in hand, every YouTube lesson on you know “correct motions”, “play this over chords”... just applied it instantly, and it was instant results within an hour... just from his free stuff. I was like, oh man, I’ve got to do lessons with this guy.
I remember when I first started out with lessons, I instantly jumped on the forum to greet myself, and it’s amazing how there’s like 30 responses. Just like, “Hi welcome.” and stuff... “Hi Dan, great musical tastes”. That made me feel really at home and welcomed into Tom’s forum and community. Every time I’ve had an issue when I was first starting out be it like theory or technique, there’s always been someone there who’s helped. Otherwise it could’ve been this potentially awkward process where I’d have to wait a whole week to get an answer from my teacher, who even then may not have answered it correctly and may have never solved it. Whereas there are guys on there who have been with Tom and have been through exactly what I’ve been through. They know exactly how to help, in what order, what information you need... it’s just a friendly atmosphere really.
Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, UK
“When I first heard about Tom Hess, I saw that he was a teacher that was very dedicated and serious about it, and that drew me in immediately. That this is a guy that has a plan, has a goal and really if you’re serious about learning guitar, this guy is equally as serious in a way. So it resonated with me straight away.”
I started out just learning by myself and as many others I got stuck. I had a few issues I wanted to get by, but when I met Tom and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be.
I feel very grateful that I found lessons from Tom since I then did what worked from the very beginning. Many guitarists I see that played way longer than I did, they have build up many bad habits. That from the very start, there was clear instruction of how to practice correctly. You build the ability for high speed and whatever you want from the very beginning and you don’t waste time doing inefficient things. So I’m very grateful that I did that, and now I really feel I am able to reach whatever level I want.
The reasons why I think I feel so motivated all the time is because I know that the thing I’m working on is relevant for me and it’s exactly the direct thing I need to get.
The forum just kicks ass. The people in the forum - it’s just like unconditional help all the time. They love to help out, and you also get very inspired by seeing someone just really getting speed really quick and then you say if he can do it, I can do it. It works on the mental side of being a guitarist and that of course that’s the most important thing. Just being around other musicians like that, is just you learn so much faster, is so much less frustration when you can see that all the people are having the same issues that you do, not anything special or anything. It’s just part of learning process, so it kicks ass.
Magnus Gautestad, Norway
“Tom was my first guitar teacher ever. I started online guitar lessons a couple of years ago and it’s what I’ve been looking for. Someone who can really help me get what I want.”
Tom really puts it back on me to decide what I want and do what I need to do to get that. That’s what so many people need when they need help - they need to know how to help themselves.
There’s abundant resources. You can always get more information. You can always get more help, especially from other people, other students, members on the forum... Most of all, it’s an opportunity for me to help myself. That’s the goal.
When I pick up something that I haven’t played for a long time with my new technique... wow, it feels different. There are plenty of songs (I’ve always played in a cover band, so I know tons of songs). There are songs I haven’t played for 5, 10, 15, 20 years... and if I pulled them up and played them, they would still feel the same way they did back them. But now, if I pull up and play a song I haven’t played in forever – Oh my God, wow! My hands do this now.
Rob Hiemstra, Toronto, Canada
“You’re dealing with one of the best guitar teachers in the world, maybe the best and you can’t get that just anywhere in the world.”
Tom is so goal focused, and I hadn’t even thought of that, it changed the way I thought of things. Tom makes you come up with musical goals and works towards fulfilling those goals. You have something to focus on, the lessons are based on meeting those goals. You’re getting better, you can see how you’re getting better and then you build new goals after that. You see the growth and development as opposed to just getting a little better at a certain technique. You’re actually developing.
Mike Larson, Milwaukee, USA
How To Make Your Blues Guitar Phrases Sound Better
Blues guitar solos or licks not sounding expressive or musical enough?
When you create a new guitar phrase, stay on it a bit longer before moving on to a new phrase.
Here is how to do this:
- Think of a small 3-4 note guitar phrase or use a phrase you already know.
- Play the phrase but change the ending 2-4 notes of it.
- Repeat step 2, but change the first (or the middle) few notes, then try this:
Ornament some notes differently using legato, speed picking, vibrato or any other techniques you are comfortable with.
Change the rhythm (make some notes longer).
If the phrase is part of a sequence, play/extend the sequence further (or play the phrase in a new octave).
This helps you to get more mileage out of a single phrase before you move on to a new phrase.
Of course, you don’t have to do all of these things all at once or in the same order, the point is simply to do more than simply play a new phrase once and immediately move to a new phrase next.
Next, when you are ready to move to a new phrase, ask yourself the question:
“What do I want to hear next?”
This helps you choose the most appropriate phrase to play next that sounds like a natural evolution of the previous phrase.
For more ideas for creating phrases, listen to solos by John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai and notice how the phrases in their solos follow the above description.
Avoid This Mistake While Playing Scales In Your Blues Guitar Solos
One of the biggest issues that blues guitarists make with scale runs in their solos is having a lack of vibrato in their musical phrases or using vibrato that is too narrow/fast.
This sounds a bit off unless you are B.B. King.
Here is what to do in order to make your vibrato and guitar scales sound better:
Listen to the players from all kinds of rock genres who have great vibrato and focus on the sound they produce (good places to start are the great guitarists mentioned in the section above).
Sometimes we get so used to the sound of our own playing that we don't know any other way it should or shouldn’t sound.
It’s easier to improve your vibrato when you can hear the difference between how your playing sounds now and what it sounds like when others play it.
After you get the basic sound of vibrato down, practice applying it to every note in a scale as part of your usual scale practice. This refines it to make it feel natural in soloing.
Improve your musical timing with the technique by using a metronome & timing each pulse of the vibrato to each beat.
Learning to play killer double stops feels awesome, but there is much more to becoming a great blues player than this - Take your blues guitar skills to the highest level with these electric guitar lessons online.