How To Play Fast Blues Guitar Licks That Sound Unique & Creative

What’s a common problem people have with their blues guitar licks? Answer: They repeat the same stock licks over and over until they become boring and stale.


So how can you spice up your blues licks?


Here’s how:


By adding speed into your playing with fast blues guitar licks along with creative phrasing and note choices.


This sets you apart from the majority of other guitar players who simply repeat the same things every time they pick up their instrument.


Let’s get started improving your blues guitar playing right now using 3 creative ideas.

 

Creative Blues Guitar Lick #1: The Tension-Builder


Making your blues guitar playing sound awesome isn’t just about using conventional blues scales or techniques.


It’s about HOW you play these things too!


Making your blues guitar licks feel more tense builds a sense of anticipation in the listener so they are on the edge of their seat waiting for what comes next.

Here’s a good way to achieve this:


Use creative bends in your blues guitar licks by slowly resolving them to the target note.


This creates massive amounts of building tension until the note is resolved, and works great to set up faster playing.


For example: Play a note on the low E string that is 2 frets below the root of the scale (such as “G” in A minor pentatonic). Then slowly bend up to the root note.


Watch a demonstration of this at 2:18 in the video:

Creative Blues Guitar Lick #2: The Fast Screamer


What makes fast blues guitar licks sound badass? Pinch harmonics.


But, not just playing them on slow notes.


Adding them into quick runs to make your blues licks sound unique as they reach out and grab the attention of your listeners.


Here’s a good way to achieve this:


Pick any scale that can be used in blues, such as the natural minor scale.


Descend through one octave of the scale quickly and add harmonics to some of the notes while descending.


For example, checking out this lick:

Here the 9th fret of the G and D strings are played with an artificial harmonic. It’s easiest to play these harmonics while quickly moving through the notes by using your middle finger to play them while performing an upstroke and moving to the next string.


Try apply harmonics on different notes of the pattern to hear different effects.


This may take a bit to get used to, but once you master this creative approach, your blues licks sound killer!

 

Creative Blues Guitar Lick #3: The Dorian Pentatonic Minor Combo


It’s common for guitarists to use the exact same guitar scales and licks every time they play blues.


For example:


·         Pentatonic minor (often with the blues #4 degree added in)

·         Double stops

·         Double stops with bends


A quick way to set yourself apart from most other guitarists is to combine common blues guitar scales with some other interesting scales.

One great scale to use in this way is the dorian scale (mode).


This scale is the same as the natural minor scale, except it uses a raised 6th scale degree.


So learning this scale gives you these options to choose from at any given time:


Pentatonic minor (all notes in this scale are found within natural minor)


Ex: A C D E G


Natural minor


Ex: A B C D E F G


Dorian


Ex: A B C D E F# G


Blues


Ex: A C D D#/Eb E G


Notice how all notes of these scales are the same, except for the raised 4th degree in the blues scale and the raised 6th degree in the Dorian scale.


This makes it easy to move quickly between any of the four scales, so you play fast blues guitar with ease while giving them a more unique sound than many other players.

Practice this by improvising freely for several minutes using the minor pentatonic scale on the left in the tab.


Then improvise using the Dorian scale on the right.


Then practice moving freely between the patterns for several minute to merge them together. Add other patterns into this exercise too such as blues, natural minor or Mixolydian of the same root note (“D” in the tab above).


Now you know some really cool ways to make your blues playing more creative.


Want to learn more ways to become a great blues player? Check out these free blues guitar resources.