It is fair to say that many blues guitar players feel comfortable staying inside the blues box. Sometimes, however, if you are a blues player, you might find yourself trying to fill an appetite for a more robust harmonic palette. You are looking for an approach ‘outside the box.’

In his course, Hip Blues: Outside Lines, Corey Congilio delves into his intuitive approach for achieving this by sharing some of his ‘outside the box’ vocabulary and improv techniques.

Here are four video blues soloing guitar lessons from the course. But, for the full course, check out Corey Congilio’s Hip Blues: Outside Lines on TrueFire!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Puttin’ it Together: Funky – Demo


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Are you ready to put it ALL together?! We’ll do it here and I’ll give you some words of wisdom (I hope)! Understanding what the approach is to this stuff is important before you go into battle. It’s totally ok to analyze some things a bit before you attack the solo!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Super Sized: Overview


Download the tab & notation for this blues soloing guitar lesson

As we get more involved in the m7b5 arpeggio, I’ll really try to make sure I explain everything thoroughly. These concepts are tricky because they’re really taking us out of the box! Literally and figuratively! Sorry in advance about my sniffling! I was sick during this entire shoot!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Super Sized: Performance


Download the tab & notation for this blues soloing guitar lesson

Phew, that started out weird! Let’s dive in and talk about it!

Blues Guitar Lesson – Super Sized: Breakdown


Download the tab & notation for this blues soloing guitar lesson

I’ll start out by employing a melodic minor scale to give us some cool outside tones. The next outside path is taken by using the C#m7b5 arpeggios to get us to the IV chord. Over the first V chord I’ll play a part of B melodic minor. I’ll approach the second part of the solo with a C#m7b5 arpeggio again. I’ll sweep through it a bit but, don’t let it hold ya back. Remember that I like to weave in and out of more straight down the middle blues ideas as well. I’ll do that here in the second half of the solo. There’s LOADS of stuff here so, I recommend taking small pieces!

Digging these free video blues soloing guitar lessons? Check out Corey Congilio’s Hip Blues: Outside Lines.