Free Online Guitar Lessons
Blues Guitar Licks
Why Licks?
Learning Guitar Licks is one of the best ways for beginner/intermediate players to learn new styles of music like Blues. It's the ideal start for someone experimenting with a new genre and will help you develop an inclination towards Blues guitar. The best method to find out which notes work on the fretboard is the practical one: Learn licks and experiment with them!
The Blues Guitar lessons on this site focused on the technical aspect of playing Blues Riff's. And while it's good to know how to properly bend a string, play a scale or do pull-offs, it's of little use unless you actually employ it in your guitar playing. That is what the Blues licks on the following pages will help you with.
Everything that you learned in that section about lead guitar scales, techniques and methods will now be put to use in this section. The licks in this section are modelled in the style of famous Blues artists like B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Lightning Hopkins and Muddy Waters. By emulating the styles and skills of these great players you'll start developing the ability to formulate your own licks, and from this your own unique style and voice will eventually be carved.
Licks are the best way to start you journey towards lead guitar mastery, but it's not the goal. It's simply the training wheels which will guide you as a Blues player to the point where you can experiment and improvise with patterns and play your own, self-formulated licks.
For a more in depth at Blues Guitar Licks and Blues Guitar in general, I highly recommend a product called Learn & Master Blues Guitar. It's an inexpensive Blues Guitar self-study course with 8 hours of practical instruction and Jam-along CD's. If your serious about learning more Blues guitar and sharpening your blues technique, check out the site of Learn & Master Blues Guitar.
By the way, if you end up buying this product through one of these links, you'll help keep this site free by sending some commission my way... and I'll certainly appreciate the support!
Blues Guitar Licks
The following pages contain a selection of 18 Blues licks aimed at the beginner to intermediate guitar players. All of the techniques and methods discussed in the Blues Guitar Lessons on this site are used in most of these licks. String Bending and Vibrato feature prominently (this is the Blues after all!) so you might want to make sure you've got those nailed down and understand how to play them before proceeding.
Each lick has a video that illustrates the lick graphically, so they're all on separate pages, listed in order from easiest to more advanced licks.
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Learn some blues guitar licks to get you started on your journey as a blues player and add some spice to your playing style.