By Tom Hess

This article is a continuation of the first part in this series about creating blues guitar licks. Before you read any further, make sure you fully understand the ideas discussed in part 1. To speed this process up, simply watch this short video about how to play blues guitar licks.

You are now going to learn how to use the muting technique you mastered together with additional blues guitar phrasing techniques that will make your playing much more expressive and creative.

To get started, watch the video below and observe how to perfectly use the techniques I will be discussing:

After watching the video above, you now have a clear understanding of how to use the following ideas to enhance your blues guitar licks:

Step #1:Quickly create a short blues guitar lick that you can easily play several times without making mistakes. Make this lick contain no more than two to five notes. By using only a few notes, you will enable yourself to get the maximum amount of expression possible when you use the techniques discussed below.

These are a few samples of the types of blues guitar licks you could create (I have not included the rhythm here – it’s up to you to be creative with the rhythms you use):

Example No.1	Example No.2	Example No.3

Notice: the licks I have provided for you above are NOT complex (on purpose). I want you to focus heavily on the techniques mentioned below in order to make these ‘plain’ licks sound totally KILLER. Watch the video above again to see how you can do this.

Step #2:Once you can very easily play through your lick several times, use any of the following techniques to enhance it. Do this one at a time, beginning with technique 1, then technique 2 and last technique 3. Re-watch the video above if necessary to see how these techniques should be used.

Technique Number One: Sliding Ornamentation:

Select any note within your blues lick and use the finger that was fretting it to quickly slide up 3-5 frets or so and return back to the original fret before continuing the lick. Don’t focus too much on the specific amount of frets you are sliding to. Instead focus on enhancing your lick with the unique sound that is creating while using this technique (rather than trying to pinpoint a specific note to slide to). When you apply this slide to a note in your lick, it will greatly increase the overall level of expressivity in your phrase. After you have become comfortable with this technique, come up with several variations of your original lick by applying slides to the other different notes within it. There are many ways to implement this idea into your playing (each one sounding more interesting than the previous one).

Technique Number Two: Delayed Vibrato

Emphasize the notes within your blues lick by using heavy (delayed) vibrato to make them sound more intense. The longest held notes will usually be the last notes of the phrase. The key to making this technique so effective is waiting to apply vibrato until a few moments pass after you’ve played the note you want to apply it to. Then apply the HEAVIEST vibrato you can perform! This vibrato in combination with a slight delay will increase the intensity of your lick by tenfold due to the anticipation that is created in the process. Work on this technique for several minutes until you have comfortably integrated it into your blues lick, then make several variations of your original lick that incorporate delayed vibrato into the notes for by varying the amounts of time you wait before applying it.

Technique Number Three:Slow, Crawling Bend

After playing the penultimate note of your blues guitar phrase, ‘slowly’ bend the note up to the last note in your lick. This will create massive tension that will make your phrase much more intense. Important notice: this bend will be MOST effective when you ‘delay’ it and will lose its effectiveness if you simply bend up to the note immediately after playing it (check out the video above again to see how long this bend needs to last). Then once you reach the target note with your bend, strike the string with tons of force! After you’ve mastered this, improvise several more variations of your original lick using bends in this manner.

Step #3:After trying out all of the techniques above and creating many variations of your original lick, repeat the process again using a totally new lick. This will help you think of endless supplies of new blues licks because there are many different ways to use the techniques to create innovative and unique phrases. Push yourself to think of as many variations as possible while focusing on just a few notes. Notice: I told you to try all three techniques with one at a time in order to make sure that you get the maximum amount of expression from every technique. This can be difficult at first, but it will MASSIVELY enhance your blues guitar creativity.

Listen to a demonstration of several phrases I’ve made from the techniques discussed in this article.

Once you’ve gone through the steps of this article, you will quickly gain the ability to play killer blues guitar licks at will. However, there is much more to be learned – watch this video about how to improve lead guitar playing and find out how to use rhythm to become an even more creative lead guitarist.

About The Author:
Tom Hess is a professional touring musician, recording artist and online guitar teacher who teaches guitarists from all over the world in his online guitar lessons. On his website, tomhess.net, you can get additional free tips about guitar playing, guitar playing resources, mini courses and surveys.

Tom Hess is our resident author, for other information including how to become an online guitar tutor go to http://www.internet-guitar-lessons.com/blues-guitar.html