Blues Soloing Maps — Playing the Changes
Most blues guitarists learn the minor pentatonic scale, find a position that works, and stay there. The solos sound fine — until you listen back and realise every chorus sounds identical. The chord changes underneath are happening, but your playing isn’t responding to them. You’re blowing over the blues, not through it.
Playing the changes means your solo tells the listener exactly which chord is playing at any given moment — without them seeing your hands. It’s the difference between a guitarist who noodles over changes and one who commands them.
Book 1 — The Core Concept
Book 1 introduces a single, simple concept for outlining blues chord changes that will immediately make your solos sound more musical and intentional. No complex theory, no new scale patterns to memorise — just one idea that you can apply to every chord in a 12-bar blues and hear the results within days of practising it.
This is probably the shortest book you’ll read on blues soloing. The concept fits on a page. The results take weeks to fully develop — but you’ll hear them the first time you apply it.
What Book 1 covers:
- Why playing one scale over the whole blues progression holds your soloing back
- The core chord-outlining concept — simple to understand, immediately applicable
- How to apply it to the I, IV and V chords in a 12-bar blues
- Practical examples you can work through and hear straight away
Book 2 — Three More Methods
Book 2 builds directly on the foundation of Book 1. If you’ve absorbed the first concept and want to go deeper, this book gives you three more approaches to playing the blues changes — each one distinct, each one musical, none of them requiring rote scale memorisation.
These methods work for intermediate players who want to sound more sophisticated, and for advanced players looking for a fresh angle on blues improvisation they may not have considered before.
What Book 2 covers:
- Three additional methods for outlining chord changes in a blues
- How to vary your approach from chorus to chorus so your solos don’t repeat themselves
- Concepts that work over standard 12-bar, minor blues, and jazz blues progressions
- How to combine the methods from Books 1 and 2 for maximum variety
Also worth reading
Simple Blues Soloing System — three fretboard positions and a handful of intervals, straight to the sounds that make blues-rock work.
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