Bread & Butter Butter Blues Licks

Bread & butter means the central or fundamental part of a thing. These tutorials have all the classic licks that you've heard from almost every blues guitar player that you can use in almost any blues solo. Have you paid your blues dues? After this collection of tutorials, you'll be ready!

Artist / Title / Progress
Difficulty / style
Christopher Schlegel
Bread and Butter Blues Licks Series 1

In this set of lessons, I'll teach you a "bread and butter" blues lick that you can use in almost any blues solo. I'll start with an introduction to the lick, then how to do the tricking picking and bending. The we'll play the lick using the IV and V chords, then we'll review the whole 12 bar form before we do two play alongs in different tempos. Next we'll look at straight 8th rhythm, and finish up with two more play alongs.

Published: 02/11/2013 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Basic Blues Licks Series 1

Christopher will show you some basic blues licks that form the foundation of blues soloing vocabulary. This includes the following characteristics of blues lead playing: using the blues scale (minor pentatonic scale with flat 5th "blue note"), triplet swing phrasing, dynamics and articulations like sliding and bending. This is essentially a primer on playing single note melody lines in a blues style to start building a repertoire of blues licks.

Published: 03/15/2018 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Basic Blues Licks Series 2

Christopher will show you some basic blues licks that form the foundation of blues soloing vocabulary. This includes the following characteristics of blues lead playing: using the blues scale (minor pentatonic scale with flat 5th "blue note"), triplet swing phrasing, dynamics and articulations like sliding and bending. This is essentially a primer on playing single note melody lines in a blues style to start building a repertoire of blues licks.

Published: 04/13/2018 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Basic Blues Licks Series 3

Christopher will show you some basic blues licks that form the foundation of blues soloing vocabulary. This includes the following characteristics of blues lead playing: using the blues scale (minor pentatonic scale with flat 5th "blue note"), triplet swing phrasing, dynamics and articulations like sliding and bending. This is essentially a primer on playing single note melody lines in a blues style to start building a repertoire of blues licks.

Published: 05/15/2018 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Bread and Butter Blues Licks Series 2

In this next set of lessons on bread and butter blues licks, I'll teach you a major pentatonic lick. I'll introduce you to the concepts and lessons and show you the basis of the lick, then how to apply the picking and bending. We'll then play the lick over the IV and V chords, then add some variation. We'll do play alongs in two different tempos before we examine the lick in a straight 8th rhythm. We'll conclude with 2 more play alongs.

Published: 03/21/2013 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Bread and Butter Blues Licks Series 3

Bread & butter means the central or fundamental part of a thing. It also means how you earning a living; how you earn you bread to pay for your bread & butter! In this tutorial we'll learn another, more advanced major pentatonic lick that you've heard many times.

Published: 11/20/2013 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Spiced Up Blues Series 1

Christopher will show you how to really spice up your blues rhythm and lead playing with some interesting chord progressions, chord voicings and lead licks! First we'll look at a chord progression that's not the standard 12 bar form. Next we'll add some extended chord voicings. Next, we'll add some licks that are more chord tone based than standard pentatonic. Finally, we'll put them all together in some play alongs to practice these new ideas.

Published: 01/15/2019 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Spiced Up Blues Series 2

Christopher will show you how to really spice up your blues rhythm and lead playing with some interesting chord progressions, chord voicings and lead licks! This time we're going to use the 12 bar blues form as a standard, but add more chords to the progression. Next, we'll add some lead licks to play over our new chord progression. Finally, we'll put it all together in some play alongs to practice these new ideas.

Published: 02/15/2019 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Spiced Up Blues Series 3

Christopher will show you how to really spice up your blues rhythm and lead playing with some interesting chord progressions and lead licks! We'll take a complex blues chord progression and learn some next level licks that build on the previous tutorial in this series. We'll put them all together in some play alongs to practice these new ideas.

Published: 03/15/2019 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Building A Blues Arrangement

Christopher will show you how to build a blues arrangement. We'll use various rhythm and lead guitar techniques and combine them in a dramatic way to build and release tension over the course of many repeated passes at a 12 bar blues form. We'll experiment with loud & quiet dynamic levels, various approaches to alternating rhythm and lead guitar parts.

Published: 07/13/2018 Upgrade
Christopher Schlegel
Building A Blues Arrangement Series 2

In this tutorial we will learn to build another blues guitar arrangement. We'll use various rhythm and lead guitar techniques and combine them in a dramatic way to build and release tension over the course of many repeated passes at a 12 bar blues form. We'll experiment with loud & quiet dynamic levels, various approaches to alternating rhythm and lead guitar parts.

Published: 03/08/2022 Upgrade