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Lukather Blues Lesson


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I've been on a bit of a Steve Lukather kick lately, and I thought this was a cool little lesson.  A lot of folks can't seem to get out of "the box" and more stock-sounding blues licks and he gives a lot of examples of how to make it more interesting.

 

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Great vid.

Yeah the trick to a more sophisticated blues sound is to treat each chord change as a key change. So, in A, A minor pentatonic over the ONE chord, D Mixolydian over the IV and E minor pentatonic over the V. This is probably the most common 'advanced' blues sort of approach. 

Of course there is a lot more options than just those.

A cool approach he touches on here is all the chord moves we already know. So if you slide down a semi-tone (or up) into a change - you can use the exact same ideas when soloing. Whatever works for the chords - works for the solo lines.

a BIG step for me was coming to understand this. Lead playing and rhythm playing are one and the same.

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Great little vid with some nice licks.

 

Some of the explanation here is cut out...basically he's talking about pretending there's an Eb9 chord right before the D7. Tritone substitution...

 

An easy way to cut down on the amount of thinking involved is to do the Emily Remler approach and play Jazz Minor off the 5th of the non-diatonic 7 chord. So for Eb9 you play Bb jazz minor. Or the lydian dominant or the overtone scale or whatever you wanna call it. Or you think of it like chord tones like Luke does here. Or you play whatever and use your ears to resolve to chord tones ;)

 

Personally, I think the easiest way to start hearing this stuff is to steal the licks here and tweak them. IMO the key to making this sound good is to do like Luke and only play the funky colors for a few beats and then land on the chord tones like a boss.

 

Good stuff!

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very cool!

 

Thanks for posting this.

Whenever I try to emphasize the individual chords in a regular blues (ie NOT a jazz-blues) I always have a hard time making it sound good and natural, I always end up sounding like an exercise trying to force-emhpasize the chord changes.

It's very inspirting to see a clip like this!

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Santuzzo wrote:

 

 

very cool!

 

 

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

Whenever I try to emphasize the individual chords in a regular blues (ie NOT a jazz-blues) I always have a hard time making it sound good and natural, I always end up sounding like an exercise trying to force-emhpasize the chord changes.

 

It's very inspirting to see a clip like this!

 

That's how it starts Lars.. in the early stages it's that way for everyone. But like anything, the more the sound gets in your ears the less "thinking" goes on - which leaves room now for the ideas to come through.

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BydoEmpire wrote:

 

 

I've been on a bit of a Steve Lukather kick lately, and I thought this was a cool little lesson.  A lot of folks can't seem to get out of "the box" and more stock-sounding blues licks and he gives a lot of examples of how to make it more interesting.

 


 

 

 

I liked it.

Hard to call this a lesson. I'm not really seeing exactly what he is doing. I assume he is playing pentatonics and flattening the 3d & 5th, sometimes augmenting the 3d and 5th.

Years ago he saw him on tour with Larry Carlton. Impressive but could have been much better.

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VagueSubscription wrote:

 


BydoEmpire wrote:

 

 

I've been on a bit of a Steve Lukather kick lately, and I thought this was a cool little lesson.  A lot of folks can't seem to get out of "the box" and more stock-sounding blues licks and he gives a lot of examples of how to make it more interesting.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked it.

 

Hard to call this a lesson. I'm not really seeing exactly what he is doing. I assume he is playing pentatonics and flattening the 3d & 5th, sometimes augmenting the 3d and 5th.

 

Years ago he saw him on tour with Larry Carlton. Impressive but could have been much better.

He always struck me as Studio Rock's answer to Lee Ritenour. Ready to punch in but not exactly on target. Sounds like he's aging gracefully though.

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