Joe Bonamassa – Sloe Gin Style Blues Guitar Solo & Bending Lesson

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In this video

Learn how to bring more expression and feeling into your blues guitar solos with this Joe Bonamassa-inspired lesson, using ideas from Sloe Gin.

We'll start with the familiar minor pentatonic scale and explore how a simple half-step bend can completely change the sound of your lead playing.

Andy breaks down some of the phrasing techniques that give Bonamassa's solos their character, including bending, vibrato, picking and moving between pentatonic positions.

In this lesson:

  • Use the minor pentatonic scale as the foundation for blues solos

  • Add a half-step bend for a more expressive sound

  • Improve your phrasing with bends and vibrato

  • Connect minor pentatonic shapes 1 and 2

  • Practise lead guitar ideas over a backing track

These are techniques you can also hear in the playing of David Gilmour and John Mayer, and they're useful well beyond this one song.

D minor pentatonic scale

Practice challenge: Take a pentatonic lick you already know, change one note into a bend and experiment with the phrasing. See how much more musical you can make it sound!

>> Keep Learning: The Language Of Lead Guitar video lesson

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