What we should learn from B.B. King - 'The King Of Blues'

four notes, that's all BB King needs to keep your attention, you can do a lot with just four notes, no wonder he's called the

king

of

blues

in this video. I've tried to figure out why he got that name and

what

we guitarists of the later generation are like. I can still

learn

a lot from the man who had already inspired legions before us, chapter one, no options, you may have heard of him, BB King Box, a group of notes that can supposedly make you sound like BB King, the second , but it is like that before we take. a look at the notes we're playing, we actually need to take a look at the songs he's using those notes in, okay cool, there are two easily distinguishable proofs of Blues, the major one with the dominant sounding chords underneath , while minor

blues

starts with a minor chord and of course BB King treats them differently, mainly let's start with major blues and now is probably the best time to start tal

king

about it.

The BB King snare fits beautifully over the bluesy dominant 7th chord and BB's brilliance. King box is that you can play it over all three chords in a typical twelve bar blues and it will do the job. By the way, all the examples I'm showing you are in the key of B because b is the BB King. Box Hop to the 12th fret on the B string, which is the root note, the note that everything revolves around, so the BB King box is based on the 1, the 2, flat, the 3, the 4, the 5 and the 6, usually the sixes are shown an octave lower at the 13th fret. that this is not the skill used in Western music, so it is easy to refer. to it like the BB King snare, so these notes work wonderfully because of these two notes here for 14 and 15, the two and the three flats, these notes can be adapted to the courts where it is played for a medical wicket that I always like to call doubling, so If it's still a chord, you can double the 14 setting a full step up and now we get to the major key of the chord, so the major third, if you prefer the minor sound or if you're in the fourth chord, you can double it a semitone. or play a fat 50 and if you're on the fifth chord you don't double everything, so it's a brilliant set of notes that suits the blues perfectly and that's a big reason why BB King likes his snare so much, but Yes, there is. but when you look at minor blues, the BB King snare is quite difficult to play correctly and that's because this little note here, the major six interval, if you listen to it becomes playback, it basically never uses the BB King snare. in the minor. blues it's just that it doesn't really work and there are better alternatives that will sound much better.

A good option, for example, would be Bucks Two of the minor pentatonic scale and that's a snare that BB King uses a lot and that's

what

it sounds like. Okay, but now we're just playing a minor skill over a minor blues and it sounds good, that's pretty logical. Yes, but let me finish. I analyzed over 15 of his most famous songs and came to the conclusion that he uses minor blues dollars in more songs than BB King's true dollars, so now I'm not just talking about minor blues, no, he also uses that chart over the major blues, has a lovely sounding listen to write and is still a BB King. so the BB King snare is only used in major blues and the minor pentatonic snare fits both major and minor so now we know let's dig a little deeper into this actual performance of chapter two some notes to tell the story , something that is really notable about his playing is that he can captivate the listener with the use of just a few notes in a song.

To know you is to love you around the two minute forty mark, two jumps into this crazy soda where he mainly uses four notes without getting boring. or monotonous, a perfect example of how you can tell a story, it takes the listener with you without getting lost in an endless series of notes with no clear destination, no, it, it makes sure we all know where it's going and it's a great place, so that the The four main notes he uses are the first four of Bucks, two of my pants on a scale from the root notes up, so B d e f sharp and he uses these four notes to create short legs that have an identity of their own.

Some sentences are short. they are a little longer and it takes a while to get to the point and this way it is less stable so shortly it could be longer Li could be and then there is a repetition by repeating you are allowing the listener to become emotionally attached to the sound that you gives. something to recognize, you can give it a positional value and change it slightly the second or third time, you can keep the listener on their toes, for example, and I found three characteristic licks that here are repeated repeatedly in his improvisation, so the first one is, for example. from the release is gone and basically it starts on the fifth and we just play a minor pentatonic scale up and then we bend on the highest note so fat12 on the E string would be taken to the third for 10 in this case and then it goes back to the roots, so the next liquor uses a lot, it sounds amazing, beautiful, it's what I call the double band, lick, hurry up, aim for different notes, one after the other, with two different bands, so this it could be a bending of the same note from the same fret. or doubling from two knows one fret apart.

I'm doubling from the 15th fret on the B string from the minor third to the fourth, then down a semitone to the 14th fret doubling a full step to the major third and then back to the root. so that's a semitone difference, but you can also start on the same note, let's start at the 14th fret, do that as an example, so Sarna frets the 14th, so the first one is higher, the third signature BB King Lake is where you read the targets of the root note and This is usually played on the BB King snare constantly resolving those root notes with quick little frivolous embellishments, this is what it sounds like, etc., just aiming to constantly go back to those killer notes, so now without lakes and what do you notice. he likes to use on what occasions and in what order, but to get to the core of his shot we need to look at his actual articulation and phrasing, the way he pronounces the way he translates his feelings into these wonderfully concise phrases, but what is exactly your phrasing? a bit vague, but for most people phraseology is the way the player dies, smaller sections together that fit together as a whole, like when you're talking, the sentences you say are just a smaller part of a story larger.

B turned to dust, it's like no. others play as if they were singing, taking time to breathe or adding a pause to put more emphasis on the subject, listen to any of their solos and vary that there is never an endless series of notes, but rather a conversation always occurs, their next phrase is a response an explanation or elaboration of some kind always makes sense so you can do this by taking elements from the first phrase and placing them in the second to tie them together this can be a rhythmic element so that you are playing the same rhythmic patterns different licks or you can do this highlighting certain notes so that they constantly hit that high level, you don't have to put them together, it can be a call and response, kind of a question and answer or just something simple that feels good. you because you're the player as long as it makes sense to you I think you're fine so a few things to consider is you need to pay attention to where on the bar you play lick one two three so now I was playing each leg on beat four, second in which it plays certain notes that Qataris are eminently suited to using a There are a large number of expressions, so let's start with the most obvious one, which is vibrato.

BB King uses a very distinctive sounding vibrato, it's usually quite fast and lively, just wave your whole hand and do it quite quickly. Then there's the bending, of course, I think this. redefines BB King, his inflection was briefly touched on in chapter 2 in the second signature lick. He's really grabbed you by the throat in a good way, so he can do a lot with a single fret, some great notes, and Bend is the second, the minor 3 of this one. one and the fourth as well, so these are all great notes to bend and they have a special feature: then you can be a semitone or a full tone, so let me give you some examples that you can do with the bend, starting with two first all the time. dance sounding very big I'll do it semitone beds sound very minor okay now go to the third the minor third you can double it a whole ton until you reach a four and then a semitone reaching a major third now we can go to the fourth it doubles a whole tone up to the fifth, if you've gone in a semitone up, you get to two four sharps flat five the notes of the blue pentatonic scale which also sounds great, so with that you can play the fifth the four sharp and a four, like this which with bending and soloing at one, flat fret, three and four, you can basically play any note you want and then you can also sit somewhere in between and give it a dirty intonation, so just bend it slightly.

It sounds great, and another thing I've

learn

ed is that I'm really terrible at bending my index finger and hanging it especially on square two of the pentatonic scale. He usually doubles the minor third up to the fourth and that really hurts. my necks here are fine, something to practice on, so moving on to the dynamics, he really knows which notes to put a lot of weight on and which notes are there to serve. He does this beautifully by emphasizing the strong notes by playing them a little louder or with more attack and with more dedication than the filler notes.

His sentences live just as when you speak some words are pronounced a little louder than others putting emphasis on the wrong notes sounds very weird and doesn't help get the point across if you know what I mean, it's about putting the weight on the right notes, on the right notes. Here is an example. Listening is playing with more attention to detail than usual. He made me appreciate this way of playing even more when you don't play too many notes, everything comes. right down to the subtleties, every note matters, just listen to how much space he creates in his solos, how much time it takes to get each phrase perfect, it sounds unhurried and uncomplicated, but all the while it's an intricate game of timing, tone, feel the dynamics of articulation, phrasing, is false. together beautifully as soon as you pick up your guitar, but let me also make a very important note, all these things that I talked about in this video, all the little tricks, little ideas, not only do they make you a better guitarist if you sit down, put a guitar. on your lap and just listen to him play along with the chorus at first to master the melody, keep listening and then when you're ready just learn from the recording, that's the way to learn it, not watch another guy. talk about it, know why not go to the teacher himself, figure out the leagues, try to play with it, the teacher has little nuances, he is phrasing the notes, the melodies and I am sure they will fall into place, just take the weather, have a wonderful day, everyone, thank you.

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