Solo guitar - Blues techniques
Play your guitar like a voice, not like a crosscut saw

To play Blues guitar solos, you'll need some more or less Blues specific guitar techniques like string bending, slides and vibrato. Hammer-ons, pull-offs and other techniques are also quite usefull.

Vibrato

Essential Blues technique. Can make a short solo ("fill") with only one note. Just listen to BB King... There are different methods to get a vibrato. Pick a note, fretted with your index finger (at first, later try your other fingers) and then:

• Combine bend up and release bend. It will generate a very intense, slow vibrato.
• Move your hand up and down parallel to the fretboard: classical vibrato. This one works good on nylon strings.
• Turn the hand at the wrist back and forth, your arm is the axis (I don't have the right words...). It will generate a fast vibrato as played by B.B. King. This is the most difficult vibrato!
• EC vibrato: like the first, but release the thumb/hand totally from the neck. The only contact with the neck is the finger which does the vibrato. Very strong vibrato. You have to stabilize your guitar with your right arm or otherwise.
• Some rock guitar players shake the hole guitar to get a vibrato or use the wammy bar. Hmmm, if you like it...

Note that the vibrato must be in time with the music. If you have some routine with bending and vibrato, than go to the master class: bend the string and than put a wrist vibrato on it. It's not easy, but you can practice it when driving a car: Hold the steering-wheel in a normal way, lift up all fingers except the thumb and the index finger. Now turn the wrist back and forth and listen to some good Blues music... (Don't crash).

If you like to put some vibrato on open strings: press and release the string at the headstock of your guitar, just before the tuning pegs.

String bending

This techniques is essential for Blues guitar, especially for electric Blues guitar. String bending means that you bend the string up (G-B-E) or down (bass strings) to get another tone. It's something a piano or other instruments can't do. There are different stories (more or less true) how it became a guitar technique.
(For example, B.B. King tried to get the sound of the slide guitar players from the Mississippi Delta. These again used a slide because the guitars always got out of tune due to the warm wet weather in the Delta.)
There are quarter tone, half tone, full tone and even more bendings. The problem is to get the right tone, otherwise it sounds like you hit the tail of a cat. Let's start with the A-scale (5th fret). Press down the B-string at the 5th fret with your index finger and pick it. Use the thumb on top of the neck as an anchor, forget the classic guitar school (no flames please). Then strike the G-string pressed down at the 7th fret with your ring finger and bend it slowly up until you reach the tone of the B-string. This a full-tone bending (a full-tone = 2 frets). Bend the string with a small turn of your hand and support the bending finger with the other fingers - it's easier.

 A

 I----------I

 I--5-------I

 I----7b(9)-I

 I----------I

 I----------I

 I----------I

Full-tone bending

With this method you can control your bending, you can also do a half-tone bending (strike the B-string pressed down at the 4th fret and bend the G-string at the 7th fret).

A typical Blues bending is a quarter tone (small) bending. You bend the string and reach the tone "between the frets". A bending into a blue note as done in the following example sounds great and is played very often in Blues music.
The standard Blues lick in tab:

 I------------I

 I------------I

 I--7br-5-----I

 I--------7~~-I

 I------------I

 I------------I

If you bend the string before striking it and release it after picking, you get a release bend ("bend down", not correct). Combining both together and repeating it will generate a vibrato, usually a slow, intense vibrato.

Slide

The second way to get another tone without picking the string is a slide. You press down the string, pick a tone an then move your finger up or down while still pressing the string down. Don't use too large steps, one or two frets are enough. Sliding into a tone picked before on another string sounds very good.
Example:

 I-5--------I

 I---/10----I

 I----------I

 I----------I

 I----------I

 I----------I

    Slide

Hammer-on and pull-off

These technique are not Blues specific, but useful.

Hammer-on: pick the open G-string and then press down the string at the 1st fret without picking it twice. You have to press down fast and powerful, then you get a tone without picking! The problem is to get the same volume and sound as the picked string.

 I-----0---0-I

 I-------3---I

 I-0h1-------I

 I-----------I

 I-----------I

 I-----------I

   Hammer-on

Pull-off: If you pick the G-string at the 1st fret and then move up your finger, you get the tone of the open string. It works better if you move your your finger slightly downwards.
Combining hammer-on and pull-off will get a triller. You can use these techniques for a faster playing, you can even play (legato) without your right hand (sorry, lefthanders...). But - that's no more Blues.

Slapping

Well known from bass players and funk music, this technique is also used in Blues guitar, especially in acoustic Blues guitar. Listen to John Lee Hooker! Just lift up the string (best done with thumb or thumb/index finger, but also a pick works) and let it slap upon the fretboard. You get a very percussive sound.

Examples:
Intro of "Hey, Hey"
Ending of "Malted Milk".

Argeggio

If you play the notes of a chord one note at a time you get an "arpeggio" (arp). When you start soloing and jamming around, arpeggios have two advantages: they sound good (just play the I-IV-V Blues progression as arps) and chord notes are easier to learn than scales. Using only the notes of a chord is a sure method to start improvisation.

Raking

If you play an arpeggio very hard and mute the strings, you get a strong percussive sound. Works especially good with barre-chords.

Example: Intro of Steppin' Out

Let's combine the techniques and play the intro of Steppin' Out, one of my personal EC favourits (as done on the "Beano"-record):

I----------------------------------------------I

I----------------------------------------------I

I----3---3-5p3h5br-p3h5p3----------------------I

I-/5---5------------------5p3h5-5---3---3-5-5\-I

I---------------------------------5---5--------I

I----------------------------------------------I

It's played in G Blues scale, first pattern. You begin with sliding into the 5th fret of the D-string, play until you reach the 5br. Here you bend the string and release the bend immediately. The following run can be played with many hammer-ons and pull-offs.