Blues by the Bar: Cool Riffs That Sound Great over Each Portion of the Blues Progression
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(Guitar Educational). If you're a guitarist who's learned the pentatonic scale up and down the neck but still asks, "During a solo, how do I know what to play and when to play it?", then this book is for you. Its goal is to give you a variety of great blues licks that you can put together bar by bar to create a complete blues solo. Covers: the 12-bar blues progression, cool riffs, complete solos and more. The included audio features "Music Minus Me" tracks that let you play along as the featured soloist. The price of this book includes a unique code that provides access to audio tracks online, for download or streaming. The tracks include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right available exclusively from Hal Leonard. Read more
Publisher : Cherry Lane Music
Publication date : June 1, 2002
Edition : PAP/COM
Language : English
Print length : 32 pages
ISBN-10 : 1575604795
ISBN-13 : 94
Dimensions : 9 x 0.09 x 12 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,312,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #3,978 in Guitar Songbooks #8,780 in Music Instruction & Study (Books)
#3,978 in Guitar Songbooks:
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
I've been playing guitar off and on for over 30 years. My playing reached an intermediate level that I just seemed to get stuck at. From what I've read, this is very common. I learned the pentatonic scales up and down the fretboard and could put together a resonably cohesive blues solo. However, I found that I got stuck using the same licks and riffs over and over and over again with slight variations. My solos all sound the same at some level. This book is helping me break out of that rut. There are ideas presented in these riffs that would never have occured to me. Switching from the minor to pentatonic scale mid solo...huh, sounds pretty cool! Some of these ideas I've heard before, and now I can learn how to play them. I'll listen to a phrase and think "oh, that's pretty cool", and not long after, I've learned how to play it! I like that each phrase is presented in 2 measures. This makes them easily digestable and you can really dig into the subtle nuances of the lick presented. Too many people get hung up on speed and number of notes. Some of these licks present simple ideas with great subtle touches in phrasing and note bending. Others are more challenging with their speed. I've been working on the first 10 examples for about a week. It's a lot of fun and already I can see where I can take some of these ideas and incorporate them into my soloing. I can also take my existing bag of tricks and enhance what I've learned to make it "more my own". I agree with other reviews that this book is for an intermediate player, or maybe and advanceded beginner. You need to have some dexterity on the fretboard along with some strength in your fingers for bending. You'll also need to be able to do alternate picking and have some reasonable speed. Technique is not discussed in this book at all, because technique is not what this book is about. And that's what I like most about this book - I can learn and analyze cool sounding phrases without dealing the obstacle of speed technique. That's a separate task :-). I'm also finding it useful for tweaking my guitar tone, which is something I never really fine tuned. I'm learning what minor tweaks of tone controls and pickup selection can do to my sound and make it more expressive trying to match the tone on the CD.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2012 by Amazon Customer
Format: Paperback
Chris Hunt is a New York City-based guitarist, composer, and producer with a long list of top-flight credits and a solid educational background (Berklee School of Music). The concept of the book is fresh and well-grounded in the notion of the blues as an improvisational art. The author has broken a twelve-bar slow blues into six two-bar segments and provided a variety of examples of what you might do in each segment. If you study and absorb all of the examples, it will fill you with ideas for each part, and you will find yourself synthesizing new ideas from the fabric of old ideas. That's what improvisation is all about. It is also quite a technical workout, which is bound to give you more freedom of expression. There has apparently been some effort to keep the first example in each group relatively simple. However, the complexity curve rises steeply after that, which is why this is not a book for beginners. There are plenty of sixteenth notes throughout, and the bending is subtle. The phrasing is surprisingly good, which clearly shows that the author has absorbed the styles of the masters. Contrary to what is said in the negative review, the notation is standard notes plus tab, so there is plenty of information to work with. However, it would have been better if there was more, because there are some things that tab and standard notation can not portray. In example 3, for instance, a rake is indicated by grace-note "x"s on the pitches G and A, but the tab below it shows more accurately that they are on strings 5 and 4. You can figure out which one is correct because it can't possibly be "G and A," but it would be better if both types of notation agreed, so why not place the x's on the appropriate open-string notes in standard notation? Also, this is a point where performance notes would help. Exactly how and where do you mute the strings, and what should you watch out for (such as unintentional harmonics)? By the way, the rake is actually not on the third beat of the first measure, as shown, but on the second beat of the second measure, which indicates some sloppiness in editing. The same comments might be made about the rake-and-slide on the fourth beat of the second measure. Do you rake three open strings (5,4,3) that are muted and then drag your finger (which finger?) down the strings? This doesn't work. Not even close. It's pretty clear to me how he executed the rake-and-slide, but it should be spelled out, with performance notes added where needed. Perhaps the author was thinking, "Everybody knows how to do this," but he owes it to the audience to be as complete and true and accurate as possible. By the way, this is one of the most irritating things about modern electric guitar notation. It goes almost all the way, but pulls back and leaves you hanging just when it's about to finish the job. When you watch a video, it turns out to be simple, after all. Or not. But at least the notation should be complete and accurate. Authors owe that to the readers at minimum. The guitar used in the recording sounds good, so it would have been nice if there had been some equipment notes, which is pretty standard in magazines these days (see "Guitar Techniques"). Books haven't quite caught up, for some strange reason. It would have been helpful if Hunt had added a note to each example that said something like, "In the style of," and gave a discography. There's a lot of unused space on the pages, so it would have been easy. The blues scale breakdown at the beginning of the book includes left-hand fingering, but left-hand fingering is absent where it really counts: in the examples. If Hunt wanted to score a classic, he might have corrected all those faults, which are not unique to this book, but found in most guitar books. He might also have explained how to release or kill a bent note properly. There isn't a single source anywhere on the Web or in print, as far as I know, that does this, and yet it is obvious that ending a bend is a critical technique. Since there's more than one way to do it and a bunch of ways to do it wrong, it really demands some explanation. These faults make Hunt's book no worse than hundreds of others, and the concept and the examples he uses to flesh it out are way above average, so the book is a worthwhile investment. It could have been better if the author had shown more consideration for the audience, which is why I deducted one star. I recommend the book without hesitation.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2010 by Big Wave Dave
Format: Paperback
I've got to hand it to Chris Hunt. He knows how to make a buck in the music business by putting out compelling product. In this book you have a step by step or bar by bar approach to teaching slow 12 bar blues. The caveat being the licks are cherry picked and sound as tho they were gleaned from Robben Ford's blues vocabulary. I ordered this on a lark half thinking it would be mediocre to horrible but man was I wrong ! Okay, you're going to need amplification for your guitar or a V-AMP or something like it and a stereo cable with 1/4 inch connections because the 66 licks were recorded in stereo and the lead is on one side and the band is on the other. If you use a mono cable you will just get the band and you really need to hear these licks. Chris has the timing and nuance down to a science so the tab and notation are not enough. You can't notate a language and the blues is just that in musical form. The two demonstration solos were recorded together so for those two tracks (71, 72) I believe you do not need a stereo cable but the previous 66 tracks you absolutely do. Another thing is be careful with your hearing. I would recommend wearing plugs and limiting your headphone time to no more than an hour at a shot. In that hour you can perhaps work on 10 licks . Within a month you could absorb the whole book and then just go back from time to time to refresh. I go back and forth between this and jazz which is much easier on the ears. I like Pentatonic concepts by Steve Kahn because he presents all the theory with little intellectual challenges. These two guys are similar in their teaching skills with different musical orientations. Thanx to both of you !
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Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2008 by Slo-Hand
Format: Paperback
I have twenty or so books on electric blues guitar. Most of them are terrible. Riffs are mediocre or they're played without any context or even backing track. Hard to believe, but there's a lot of worthless junk out there. This one is different. The riffs are very cool sounding, the track is well done with guitar in one channel and the band in the other. And the context is completely broken down and memorable. In other words its easy, fun, and cool. If you're a beginning blues guitar player, or just wanting to learn to play, let me save you a LOT of time and hassle: First, GET THIS BOOK. Its ten bucks- that's less than the price of ONE LESSON at your local guitar store. Next, pick between two and four riffs from each section. Play them over and over until you can do it fluently. This could take weeks to months (not years) depending on where you start and how much you practice. Now start practicing the riffs over the song sections at the end of the CD- practice mixing them up and transposing octaves. See what sounds good. Next, continue the above, and learn and mix in the rest of the riffs from the book. Finally, with the riffs in this book in your arsenal, and your newly acquired sense of phrasing and dexterity, pick a blues guy that you like. NOT Hendrx. Someone like BB King, Albert King, or Freddie King- someone who sounds good, but isn't playing alot of pyrotechnics. Get yourself a little handheld microcassette recorder and record some tracks off your chosen CD- learn the riffs and the songs off the microcassette (very easy to quickly rewind a riff, many have different speeds- you can slow down a fast riff to learn it) Keep practicing and adding on. There you go. That's all you need. Follow this, and you WILL become a guitar god, or at least a lesser demon (ie Monday Night Blues Jammer)
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Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2008 by Kavity Killer
Format: Paperback
As a relatively intermediate blues guitarist, I purchased this book as a supplement to my other existing resources. The book does a good job of explaining the basics for the blues; the most common 12-bar arrangements, the minor and major pentatonic scales, etc. (all of which I already knew). It also has several good examples for licks, etc. However, in my opinion the book lacks a bit of supplemental information throughout. For instance, although they're used extensively in the tableture, the author makes no reference to the identification and use of ghost notes, slides, vibrato, etc. Again, the lack of this explanation might confuse a relative beginner. Additionally, there is no explanation as to why or(more importantly) when to use the major pentatonic scale in a given progression (vs. the minor pentatonic). This is the main reason I purchased the book. There are countless examples of licks available, both in book form and on the internet, etc. However, I've yet to find a resource that explains the "best practice" for utilizing the major scale over the minor, etc. The sample licks in the book could be a bit more useful if included the scale(s) they're built on (e.g., I-chord uses Minor Pentatonic, V-chord uses the Major Pentatonic, etc.). Not a bad book, but it could contain a bit more information and explanation.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2013 by Dave Entenman
Format: Paperback
Something like 75 great sounding licks for guitar at 9 bucks--doesn't get much better than that. Excellent blues licks that DO sound great and are equally applicable in blues and blues-rock contexts. Plug in a Fuzz and speed it up a bit and you're right there. I used this book successfully to provide me with some alternate licks to play during Red House and Voodoo Child specifically, to help get the improvisational creative juices flowing. These are great sounding, fun to play licks that range from beginner to intermediate and advanced, depending on the speed and skill with which they're executed. The quality of the audio CD is superb as well. The lead guitar sounds great, and the backing tracks are more than satisfactory. The licks are easily transposed to any blues jam or psychedelic peregrination your musically devious heart desires. That's why I love this book: it is just as applicable in a classic rock setting as it is in a purely blues setting; in fact, they could change the title of the book to something like "1960's Era Blues-Rock Licks Played Slow for Beginners and Being Well-Suited to the Tunes of Sorcerer of Fuzz and Supreme Deity of Rock Jimi Hendrix . . . and, incidentally, the music of lesser talents Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton." Great title I think; 'though, it's wordy and may stir up controversy, so maybe don't adopt this title for the next edition, Mr. Hunt. Anyway, buy the book. It's a lot of fun.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2014 by Theodor Brennan
Format: Paperback
I'm an intermediate blues guitarist in my 40's. I'll never be Albert King. I do aspire to be a better player, however, and maybe someday be good enough to play out in an open mic setting. Well this book will help get anyone to that point. A lot of us know the Pentatonic Blues scale, most of us know the scale in all 5 positions across the fretboard in all 12 keys... but somehow it doesn't quite "come together" when we play. Whether it be the feel, the phrasing, the note selection... whatever, it just doesn't feel "right." This book will give you plenty of licks to build on and use and tells you WHERE in the 12 bar (quick change in this case) progression these licks "fit." Everyone knows you emphasize certain notes in the blues scale over particular points in the blues progression - it's just most of us "average" players don't know which notes go with which chord in the progression. This book fixes that - or helps to. Not only does it build your lick vocabulary but it tells you WHERE and WHEN these licks sound best over a 12 bar progression. This is invaluable stuff. It's an excellent book and really will improve your overall playing. I can't recommend it enough. Kudos, Mr. Hunt!
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Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2012 by Ratboy
Format: Paperback
There are several very deep soloing books out there (Solo Strategies by Kolb) and intro books (Guitar Clues) that with some effort you will be richly rewarded. Think Calculus with graph paper by hand. This book is a calculator with a cheat sheet attached! This book has a very focused purpose. VERY focused. You're playing the standard 12 bar blues and you want spice it up a bit. So he gives you useful little riffs to use in each two bar segment. Plug and play. Hence the title of this review. With this book you can be playing blues guitar for a month and start to give your playing a bit of cool complexity. Nobody has to know it was easy for you. A great aspect is this will encourage a new guitarist to continue and keep learning. Just remember its goal is not to teach you soloing or creating your own riffs. You'll have to look else where for that. I wish I came across this book a long time ago.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2010 by TioRanjel