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Improv Session 2: Albert King-Style Blues (Patreon)

Published:
2020-06-12 11:47:57
Imported:
2026-06
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Hello all,

This week I have another improv session for you. I play over a backing in the style of the Albert King classic Crosscut Saw. Then I go through various soloing ideas, from some some easy stuff to some more advanced concepts. Everyone can have a go playing over this. 

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/CM7SFPW0QPo

The backing track mp3 is attached to this post. 

In news relating to last week's lesson, rather brilliantly it seems Malcolm Ross from Orange Juice was made aware of my video (thanks to a friend of my site) and offered this information about the recording on his Facebook page: "Guitar is through a '70s Mutron bi-phase peddle. Split the signal into 2 which were both phased separately."

Nice to have that mystery cleared up. This pedal is an amazing and unique-sounding thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2H9EwVGhs

I was of course straight on eBay trying to find one, but sadly they're pretty hard to come by these days and when they do come up, they seem to be going for silly money. Nevermind!

Hope you all have a great week. Speak soon,

Adrian

Comments

Dan Uhlinger

Awesome. I really like these soloing improv sessions. The Neil Young one especially.

Thomas Simmons

You're such a fantastic player. My vote for a lesser played Black Sabbath song is "Thrill of it All" from Sabotage.

Lance Ryan

Adrian this is fantastic. Exactly what I want to learn - thanks.

Sean Bullinger

Hi Adrian thanks for a great lesson. Also the Les Paul looks good on you! 😎

Ralph Blair

Brilliant as always Adrian. My favorite blues guitarist. If you haven't, check out the Wednesday and Thursday night in SF albums, I think same performances Blues Power was selected from.

Ralph Blair

Also, re the Sabbath request, of course the obvious choice is Paranoid, but my favorite Sabbath riff is Supernaut, killer riff and when the bass comes in wow. Apparently a favorite of Frank Zappa as well, I guess Geezer Butler was a big Mothers fan...

Brian Scott

Ah ha! The bit explaining where you derive the sixths from with relation to the key you are in made a few murky things clear for me, thanks as always!

RALPH D. PHILLIPS

This is great! It will keep me busy for a long time!

Lance Ryan

As a new learning player some tabs of those Albert King style moves would have been nice. Having to watch the video over and over to try and figure out the notes is not what I find easy or fun.

anyonecanplayguitar

Thanks Dan. Think I'll keep the series running as it seems to going down well with people.

anyonecanplayguitar

Thanks Tom! Great Sabbath choice! Not decided what I'll do yet, but that one is now a contender.

anyonecanplayguitar

Yes, appreciate that. with This video I wanted to keep the main focus on improvising and having you do your own thing rather than doing what I do. So it's more about general soloing principles, than about specific moves. But it can certainly be good to learn other people's solos and licks too. If it would be helpful, I can tab out my intro solo.

anyonecanplayguitar

That's good, 6th can be the source much confusion, but glad to hear it's becoming clear for you.

anyonecanplayguitar

Yes, Paranoid's fantastic, but I daresay it's been done by quite a lot of other teachers already. Supernaut could work really well - that's a strong contender!

anyonecanplayguitar

I'm not really familiar with those records - will check them out this week!

anyonecanplayguitar

Thanks Sean - it still feels slightly unwieldy compared to my Fenders, but it is a beautiful looking guitar.

Thomas Simmons

Cool. Yes that song has a lot of good guitar bits and a nice melodic solo. And none of it is played too fast. Lol

Andreas Scholze

Hi Adrian, thanks for another great video about improvising. I think, I am somewhat of an advanced beginner player. I know all the pentatonic boxes, even the minor scale. So I focused on the beginner part in your video. But when I play to a backing track and try to improvise, it's always 8th notes. Whenever I try to change the rhythm - like you do in your video - I totally mess up and sound awful. Do you have any advice, how to improve on this issue? Maybe I have to be patient and this is something that comes with experience. Or, is there something that I can practice? I mean I could learn some licks and apply them, that works. But this is not really improvising, right?

Lance Ryan

I understand your thought and I am currently developing my own playing in Am position 1. The problem is my playing sounds OK and it's fun, but shows I'm in kindergarten. Your playing sounded absolutely fantastic. I don't want to sound like you, but I want to understand a few of those fingerings because It'll take me a decade to figure it out on my own and that's about all the time I have left in this world. I was just looking for a few examples I can integrate them into my own style. Don't do anything just for me, but next time give us a few examples please.

anyonecanplayguitar

Hi Andreas. It probably will come with practice and experience but there are things you can do to speed up the process. I'd say you should be working on separately on your rhythm - scales or exercises using a metronome, 8th notes, triplets, 16th notes and switching between them fluently. Maybe try learning one or two solos note for note just so you can absorb some of the rhythms other players use. Then when it does come time for you to improvise and do your own thing, you'll be more confident and have some vocabulary to draw upon. Hope that helps a bit!

Chris Kueny

I'd just been reflecting on this idea of learning note-for-note licks. Adrian emphasizes the value of understanding why licks are the way they are, and indeed I've felt baffled sometimes when trying to learn a solo, etc. without understanding why it was the way at was, but at the same time there's a long tradition of copying things as a way toward better understanding them. It seems like that can help to build some skills for switching rhythms, etc., while meanwhile we learn some of the theory and practice improvising and maybe slowly get the hang of using it all.

Chris Kueny

I'd submitted a suggestion for Children of the Grave, but anything from Sabotage (the last great Sabbath album for me) would be nice too.

Chris Kueny

I love Supernaut too, one of their great riffs. In case Adrian does *not* do that one, I hope he won't mind my pointing out that a guy named Alex on guitarforce.com has a nice Supernaut lesson on Youtube, along with a few other Sabbath tunes. Still I'd be happy for any of theirs that Adrian wants to cover.

anyonecanplayguitar

Sabbath coming up tomorrow! Not any of the tracks mentioned here, but hope you guys still enjoy it. I may well stilll do Children of the Grave later in the year - I've already transcribed it and done the tab. And Sabotage is great, so perhaps something off that too.

Thomas Simmons

It's gonna be fun to watch you play Sabbath