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Blues music, as a style, has paved the way for many great, iconic guitar players. The players who have really shone through developed some characteristics about their playing that set them apart. At the base level, these guitarists play with passion and meaning in every note. They refine their lines and find ways to venture outside the typical blues box.

These guitar icons inspire other great guitarists, like world-renowned blues player, Kid Andersen. In his course, Blues Refinery, Kid shared with you his approaches for navigating the fretboard and refining your own lines.

Here are eight video blues guitar soloing lessons from the course. For the full course, check out Kid Andersen’s Blues Refinery on TrueFire!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Finding Lines in Chord Shapes: Demonstration


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So, now I want to talk to you a little bit about how we can orient ourselves around the neck by playing in different chord shapes instead of staying in the minor pentatonic blues box.

Blues Guitar Lesson – Finding Lines in Chord Shapes: Performance


Download the tab & notation for this video blues guitar lesson

Now, I’ll perform this at tempo so you can hear how these concepts are applied in context.

Blues Guitar Lesson – Shortcut #1 : Demonstration

Shortcut #1 I call “implying the ‘Stormy Monday’ changes before the turnaround”. Now, if you don’t know how the changes go, we’ll go over them here. I should say that the original version of the song didn’t have these changes in it – Bobby Bland covered the song and put in the changes, and had a big hit with it. Then, the Allman Brothers covered it using these changes, and that’s probably why everyone knows them.

Blues Guitar Lesson – C Major Blues Application: Performance


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Now, we’ll take a look at some of our shortcuts over a performance study. This track is a major blues in the key of C, and a great canvas to hear these things in action. Let’s get to it!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Slow Jazzy Bb Blues: Performance


Download the tab & notation for this video blues guitar lesson

Alright, now I’m going to play over a slow blues in Bb that has some more sophisticated “uptown” changes. It has a ii-V turnaround, going to the vi chord beforehand, and the second bar of the IV chord is diminished. So, the sophistication is already built into the track! Let’s see if I can make it even more sophisticated by employing a few of my shortcuts.

Blues Guitar Lesson – Slow C Minor Blues: Overview


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Our final track is a slow minor blues in the key of C. The I chord is Cmin, Fmin is the IV chord and the turnaround goes G7, Ab7 and back. I’ll definitely be incorporating some heavy dramatic bending, a lot of use of space and dynamics, and some unexpected notes that in the wrong hands could sound bad. But! I intend to make them sound right. Let’s see how that goes.

Blues Guitar Lesson – Slow C Minor Blues: Performance


Download the tab & notation for this video blues guitar lesson

Now, I’ll perform this blues in full so you can get feel for how it can be executed using the concepts we’ve been discussing.

Blues Guitar Lesson – Slow C Minor Blues: Breakdown


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Finally, let’s break this down so can see how to apply these refined approaches more closely.

Digging these free video blues guitar soloing lessons? Check out Kid Andersen’s Blues Refinery.