How to Play Lead Blues Guitar

Playing lead blues guitar is primarily the breakdown of certain chord progressions into leads or solo runs. Blues guitar is how chords and chord progressions sound. All the same chords play rock, country, jazz or blues, depending on the type of music you prefer.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Begin with the most common 12-bar chord progression. Use any three chord combinations for the progression. Start with the major chord or seventh of the group and use the 12 measures to strum out the rhythm, going from the one, to the three, to the five and back to one.
2. Get comfortable playing the basic rhythm before you break apart the chords into a lead or solo.
3. Replace each measure with an easy blues pattern. Begin with a straight eighth note feel. Play with your first finger down on the second fret. Move your third finger up to the fourth fret and lift your third finger up and down as you play.
4. Listen for the straight eighth note feel, which should sound like "Da, da, da, da-da, da-da."
5. Use the shuffle feel for a different sound. It should sound like "Da-da, da-da, da-da," with a little hold on the first beat of each pair.
6. Practice blues-playing techniques for playing leads or solos. Some of these are vibrato, bend-and-release-bend and wrist vibrato.
7. Listen to other blues lead guitar solos to develop an ear for what yours should sound like. Begin to improvise your own solos by breaking apart the chords and trying some of the techniques as you learn them.