How To Use Blues Guitar Double Stops With Bends To Play Awesome Licks

Tired of playing the same blues guitar double stops, licks and runs all the time?

Good news:

It's not too hard to think of cool new blues guitar licks when you know a few creative phrasing approaches...

Which approaches, you ask?

Here is one:

How often do you use string bending to enhance your blues guitar double stops using the idea in below?:

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Use the approach in the video to enhance your blues guitar licks and play with much more creativity and expression overall.

Now that you understand a cool new way to play blues guitar double stops with bends to make your playing sound incredibly creative, what's next?

Use these additional tips to improve your blues guitar licks and soloing creativity:

Tip#1: How To Make Your Blues Guitar Licks Sound Better

Blues guitar licks don't sound expressive or emotional enough?

When you play your own new guitar phrases, stay with them a bit longer before moving on to play a new phrase.

(Many guitar players move on way too fast in order to add more notes - Avoid this approach.)

Try this out:

1. Improvise a short guitar phrase or take an excerpt from a phrase you already know.
    
2. Play the entire phrase but alter the final two notes of the phrase using any note(s) from the key.
    
3. Repeat the previous step, but instead of the final notes, change notes in the middle of the phrase by:
   
   Embellishing them using legato, tremolo picking, double stops, blues guitar bends or any other techniques you are comfortable with.
   
   Alter the note rhythm (make some notes either shorter or longer).
   
   If the guitar lick is part of a sequence, play/extend it or change it to a new sequence.

This helps you to train your creativity very effectively using just a limited range for your phrase rather than playig through an entire solo hoping to run into notes that sound good.

Of course, you are free to think of more ways to practice this skill than what is listed here. Try to think of 3 more creative ways to practice phrasing based on the skills you want most - such as blues guitar double stops, sweep picking arpeggios, etc.

Next, when you are ready to move to a new blues guitar lick, ask yourself:

“What emotion do I want to feel?”

This helps you select the most appropriate direction for the phrase so it sounds like the natural evolution of the previous one.

For more tips for creating phrases, listen to solos by John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Marty Friedman or Steve Vai and notice how they phrase during their guitar licks and solos.
 

Tip#2: Avoid This Mistake While Playing Scales In Your Blues Guitar Licks

One of the biggest issues that blues guitar players make with scale runs in their solos is not using enough vibrato or using a very narrow and fast vibrato.

This sounds very similar to how B.B. King plays, but outside of that context you might sound like you are anxious while playing or like there is a buzzing insect nearby.

Here is what to do in order to make your blues guitar vibrato and scales sound awesome:

Listen to the players from all kinds of musical genres who have excellent vibrato and pay attention to their phrasing.

Sometimes we get so used to the sound of our playing that we stop thinking of new ways to play creatively.

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 other great players use it.

Once you get vibrato technique mastered, work on applying it to every note in a scale as part of your typical scale practice routine.

This helps it become more natural sounding while soloing.

Question: Should You Learn To Play Blues Guitar Alone Or With A Teacher?

Every blues guitar player wonders this at some point as they improve but still have skills they haven't refined yet.

Do blues guitar players need to take lessons with a teacher or is this only for people want to become virtuoso players?

Answer:

Every guitarist benefits by taking lessons with a teacher rather than learning alone.

It's not uncommon to become stuck in your musical journey and not aware of what has to get done to improve without someone experienced to assist you.

This makes trying to get better at guitar become tedious and demotivating rather than pleasurable.

This is exactly why I strongly recommend all guitarists take lessons with a good guitar teacher - whether you are a blues guitarist, rock guitarist or pop  guitarist.

This is very essential for helping you make accelerated progress, because a decent guitar teacher is successful at getting you to notice where you are overlooking mistakes, fix any playing habits and obtain new knowledge about playing guitar that you may not have heard about if you learned solely by yourself.

Not only does this make learning about guitar more exciting, it makes it a lot less frustrating. Also, you become a well-rounded guitar player, in no time.

When you are all set to achieve a new standard of skill in your blues guitar playing, work with a teacher. Doing this gets you results like what my students got:
 

Learning to play killer double stops with bends feels awesome, but there is much more to becoming a killer blues player than this - Take your blues guitar playing to the highest level with these electric guitar lessons online.