Learn to Play Blues Guitar - 4 Common Mistakes New Guitarists Make When Phrasing Blues Solos

One of the most important ideas when you learn to play blues guitar is phrasing.

Phrasing is how a guitarist takes all the little techniques and notes and puts them together to create a fresh, expressive and personal musical idea. Phrasing makes a guitarists sound his own. It is especially important in the internet age if we want to distinguish ourselves from the hordes of other guitarists using the same tabs and playing the same tunes.

A well phrased tune can create a far more interesting and compelling piece of music than someone just ascending and descending a scale.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to learn blues phrasing. Every guitarist is going to be a little different in what they find sounds pleasurable. Eventually you will settle on what feels most comfortable to play for you.

However, for every guitarist, the nuances that need to be considered are the same. Even having an awareness of them can make all the difference.

Mistake No. 1

It is very common, particularly for beginning guitarists, to focus too much on what notes are being played, and ignore the importance of timing.

Music is about pitch and rhythm, and even a very complex and intricate solo will sound bland without considering timing. There are two particular mistakes that are extremely common.

Mistake No. 2

The second mistake is just using the same interval the entire time, usually eighth notes (two notes per beat), though occasionally other musical intervals as well. Sometimes with short solos or fills this works and sounds good. For long solos this can end up sounding quite boring, no matter what techniques or scales are used. If you listen to a lot of the more compositional focused guitarists, they tend to mix a lot of different intervals together, which sounds much more interesting and dynamic.

Mistake No. 3

The third common mistake is trying to put too many notes into a single idea. More notes do not make a lead better. The more notes we use a lead, the less expressive techniques we use. Even if the guitarist is fast enough to throw them in, there isn’t any time to dwell on ideas and make good use of vibrato etc. Fast parts are a part of lead work and shouldn’t be ignored, but playing as fast as possible the entire time tends not to make good blues guitar solos.”

Mistake No. 4

The fourth common mistake is over using our technical abilities. More Technical Is Not Better. Technical abilities do not automatically make better songs. Technical abilities give a wider range of things a guitarist can put into a part to make it more compelling and expressive. However, a lot of really great guitar parts are not that technical or complex. Don’t feel obligated to use every technique in every song or part you write. If just plucking out three notes for a fill sounded really good, playing ten won’t necessarily sound better. Technical abilities can take a good musical idea and make it sound better, but it still requires that original music idea in order to work.