3 Simple Blues Soloing Tricks (To Break Free From Scales)

The blues is an art form of the soul. It expresses the deepest feeling of the human experience.



Scales, on the other hand, are a structure of the mind. They express the mathematic elegance of the universe expressed through sound. Both are good but they are not interchangeable. Even on simple guitar songs, you still want your playing to sound like music.


And while knowing some scales can certainly advance your blues playing, if your jamming sounds like scales, well, that's a good first step but you have not yet reached your potential as a true blues player.


In this article I want to show you 3 quick tricks to break you out of the scale habit as soon as your fingers touch the strings. This will make even the simplest guitar songs sound amazing.


I'm assuming you already know at least one pentatonic scale. If you're not quite up to that, that's okay. Simply go learn one simple five note scale and practice it for a while. (Watch for my articles on pentatonics and the blues scale.) Then come back here and try these three tricks.




==> Trick #1


Choose one segment and twist and turn it. Take four notes from the pentatonic scale or any other mode you may be working with. Commit to those 4 notes only (for this practice session). Play them up and down, in order and out of order, and let your fingers dance on those four notes against a backing track. This will force you to be creative and to break out of the scale since you have to keep mixing it up.


==> Trick #2


Have a musical conversation. Play one of your four note licks, the one you like the best from trick # 1. Then reiterate it in octaves or elsewhere on the neck like a conversation. You can include slight variations in the call and response. This gives your music character and it becomes interesting to the listener. They feel as if they are listening to a conversation, not someone practicing scales.


==> Trick #3


Sing your solo quietly as you play. You probably would not sing a scale - especially on an easy guitar song - so don't play one. Sing your lick as you feel it and let your hands mimic the melody that comes through your feelings rather than the scales that come through your mind.




If you are not skilled enough to do this on the fly, sing the lick first, then figure out the fingering for it. You will be creating your own signature licks in this way and breaking out of the scale rut in the most creative way. In fact, you may find that some of the notes in your new lick are not even in the scale you are working with. That's ok. If they sound right to your ear, include them. This not only breaks you out of sounding like you're practicing your pentatonics, it actually breaks you out of the scale itself. What is probably happening is that you are naturally mixing major and minor pentatonic and that is the best way to get the most authentic blues sound in your playing. So trust your heart and your ear and play what you feel.


Use these three tricks on a regular basis and I guarantee your blues soloing - even on simple guitar songs - will jump a level so fast that heads will turn when you play. This helps your jamming as well as your songwriting and it educates your fingers to start moving on their own to follow the music in your soul.

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The best way to learn how to play piano by yourself

Learn piano to find a talent that will frequently benefit you with good friends, loved ones and in all round life. Having fun with a nice song the moment you have a seat at a piano is an wonderful skill. You would be able to intrigue a filled room of men and women effortlessly as a master piano player. Mastering the piano or keyboard, however, will take time and work if you teach yourself piano. Growing into a pro piano player will take determination, fortitude and dedication. And yet if you put in a little added effort and work hard, you will turn several years of practice into mere months. Really make the most of the resources and information on this web site.

Two schools of thought surface when you teach yourself piano. There are more, but these are the general methods to learn piano. One of many ways to learn piano is to try to not concern yourself with playing without the assistance of sheet music. Playing piano by reading notated sheet music will be the main focus of study here. Should you be the type of person who wants to teach yourself piano mainly because you would like to sit down and play piano without needing to read sheet music, the focal point will be more so on memorization of scales and chords. Having a superb grasp of both types of playing is the real way, however, to truly master the piano. So try to teach yourself piano using both schools of practice, regardless of the piano tutorial you use.


Learn Piano Playing With Online Tutorials

Teach yourself all about piano notes at the time you are first starting out. This is the initial step in everything else you will learn when you teach yourself to play piano. If you want to teach yourself piano with a piano tutorial, commit these notes to memory. Get started with the white keys, their names and their particular sounds. When you're comfortable with these main 7 keys it is easy to begin to learn about the black keys (flats and sharps).

If you desire to play piano by ear, you should still try to learn to read piano sheet music. It’s also relatively easy to get piano sheet music to some of your favorite popular songs. So take the time to at the very least familiarize yourself with a staff, treble and bass clefs and the different notes and how they are notated. It can sometimes take work to teach yourself piano, nevertheless you should believe that it is incredibly rewarding once you can take a seat and bust out a good tune randomly.


Make sure you learn about rhythm when you're learning about reading piano notes and sheet music. How a song flows in time is its rhythm. There are many lengths of the notes you can play on a piano. Some are quick, whereas others are held much longer. The concept of beats per minute is important and is what rhythm is based on. Unless you learn rhythm when you teach yourself piano it will be rather problematic to play songs the same as the piano masters do. Do not overlook this part of your learning.

Figuring out all about scales on the piano is next on the quest to teach yourself piano when using a piano tutorial. Every last key or note on the keyboard uses a certain “scale” (pre-defined set of notes that sound good together). There are 7 unique notes to every scale. When playing and learning piano scales, or other things in the piano tutorial, it is necessary to try and commit to memory as much as you can. If you teach yourself piano scales and memorize them adapting to completely different songs and playing styles will be substantially less difficult.

How to play piano chords is next on your journey to master the piano. Chords are groupings of notes that are played at the exact same time (i.e. using 2 or more keys on the piano at the same time). You are able to learn to play many varying types of piano chords - dark, scary chords; nice, bright and happy chords; sad and emotional chords and beautiful full chords. Playing chords on the piano is easy if you fully understand all your notes and scales. Once you master chords, you'll be all set to really master playing the piano.

Taking notes and piano chords, arranging them into chord progressions and bringing all the stuff together in a full piano song needs to be the subsequent part of your learning. The circle of fifths and the movement of music is an essential topic of study as soon as you understand and know the fundamentals. It is safer to work sequentially and find out about the principles and become confident with them just before moving to advanced topics of study.

Learn piano using a piano tutorial and you'll really hold with you a talent which is functional and envied. How fast you learn to play the piano is completely up to you. Be steady with your studying and your practice. Whether it is 20 minutes a day or an hour a day or 3 hours per day, your practice needs to be consistent. Use all the links and resources on this web site to delve more thoroughly into many of the subjects discussed here.

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The Top 10 Tribute Bands in the World

There are a lot of Tribute Bands out there in the world, and most of them are pretty poor. However, there are some that are truly outstanding. First of all, there's an important distinction between a "cover band" and a "tribute band." A cover band often plays selections of songs from lots of different artists. They don't try to actually impersonate the band they are covering, in terms of wardrobe, gear, etc. Tribute Bands, on the other hand, really make an attempt to emulate the band they are covering.
When you see any of the bands below, they look and sound almost exactly like what you would see and hear if you were to see them live or listen to them on a record. These bands have really dialed in their performances, their gear, their clothing, and their sound to the point that they are very, very close to the real thing. Of course, you wouldn't actually be fooled, but that said, the bands below really nail the stuff they are playing, and take their status as a tribute band very seriously. When you watch a good tribute band, you get a double whammy of actually enjoying a good band playing songs you know, but you also get the added kick (when the band is good) of watching a sort of high wire act, while the band tries to pull off their imitation. The following bands are the crème de la crème (in no particular order:)


1. Fan Halen (Van Halen)
2. Led Zepagain (Led Zeppelin)
3. Pink Fraud (Pink Floyd)
4. L.A.vation - The World's Greatest Tribute to U2 (U2)
5. BC/DC
6. Gabba (ABBA/The Ramones)
7. Mini Kiss (Kiss)
8. The West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys)
9. The Bootleg Beatles (The Beatles)
10. Bjorn Again (Abba)

Many of these bands start because they are fans of the original band, but there's another component: Being in a good Tribute Band can pay very well. A good tribute band playing a private event can make $5,000 to $10,000 a night. As a result, lots of professional working musicians join tribute bands because it is one of the most convenient ways to keep yourself booked. If you are playing in one of the best tribute bands in Los Angeles, or one of the best tribute bands in the world, the chances are, it can become your day job.

I highly recommend seeing any of these bands. These are highly professional outfits, and they all look and sound the part. Often these bands utilize complex staging devices, lighting, and many of them play to pre-recorded tracks that allow them to include all of the background parts you would hear on an album. This is fairly common even for the real bands, for those of you who don't know. U2, for example, plays with a keyboard player offstage, in addition to playing with pre-recorded tracks. There's just no way to pull of with drums, bass, and guitar, all the stuff that you hear when you see U2 live.


Tribute bands, that is, good tribute bands, are perfect for events, parties, and corporate functions. They are more expensive than your average cover band, but they are considerably less costly than hiring a name act. And, of course, it's actually impossible to hire The Beatles or Led Zepelin to play your birthday party. These bands make their livings playing corporate and private events, and you will find that they are professional and well prepared. Almost all of the bands listed here travel almost anywhere in the world, and are available for exclusive bookings internationally. You can find any of these bands by typing their name into google, and each of these bands has lots and lots of promotional material available on the internet, so you can see what you are going to get ahead of time, before you decide to hire them.

So there you have it. The top 10 tribute bands in the world. Each of these bands are outstanding, and well worth the money. If you hire any of these tribute bands for a private event, you can rest assured that your patrons will not be disappointed. If you can't get the real thing (and most of u2 cannot afford the hundreds of thousands that it would probably cost to hire one of the bands these tribute bands immitate, by all means, hire one of these great tribute bands.

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