Blues/Mixolydian Soloing Concept

This video lesson is designed as a perfect introduction to adding the Major 3rd interval to the minor pentatonic/blues scale to access new blues-influenced phrasing ideas in your improvisation.

If you’re a blues rock-influenced guitar player who’s familiar with the minor pentatonic scale, has dabbled with the blues scale and is looking for something new to try out, this is a great and easy concept that will expand your playing vocabulary whilst staying close enough to what you know already to be instantly accessible.

Adding a Major 3rd to a minor scale may sound like an odd concept at first, but the blurring of traditional major/minor boundaries is inherent to the harmony and tonality of the blues. This common practice works great over dominant chords and more power-chord orientated rock tunes, adding another familiar blues-y flavour to your soloing.

In the video I break down the best ways to gain command of the Major 3rd interval in this context, showing you how to find it on the fretboard, laying down a simple ground rule essential for successfully phrasing with it, and then showing 10 simple licks that will help you to build a basic vocabulary using this sound, as well as help to spark your own creativity!

You may have seen these kind of sounds referred to as ‘Mixolydian’ in some instructional writing; although the licks are not truly Mixolydian in nature, this kind of mash-up of the Mixolydian scale and the Blues scale is often more what people are referring to when they talk about playing in that mode.

If you’re interested in exploring this and other similar concepts in more detail you can contact me via email or DM for information about private lessons. I offer online video lessons via Zoom/Skype and other platforms.

Check out more lesson samples here: Free Guitar Lessons