Slow minor blues in Am

Jam track · Minor blues, 12/8 · Slow blues · A minor pentatonic

Now

A minor pentatonic · box 1

Orange dots are A, the home note.

Slow means space. Play a phrase, then wait a bar. Bend the D on the G string up to E.

Slow minor blues in Am backing track

A minor blues, 12/8 in Am at 58 BPM, with a slow blues groove on drums, bass and rhythm guitar. The loop is 12 bars long and uses 3 chords: Am, Dm, E7. Solo over it with the A minor pentatonic box shown on the fretboard.

The chords

What to play

Slow means space. Play a phrase, then wait a bar. Bend the D on the G string up to E.

The orange dots are A, the home note. While the band plays, the notes of the chord playing now light up. Ending a phrase on one of them sounds settled.

Learn the box firstScale drill

How to practise with it

Play the box up and down once with the band, one note per beat, to hear how it fits.
Make up a two-bar phrase and repeat it. Change one note each time round.
Leave gaps. A phrase, then a bar of rest, sounds more like music than notes all the way through.
Turn the guitar off and play the chords yourself, or slow the tempo down to learn the changes.

Drums: Sonic Pi sample library from freesound.org, CC0. Bass and guitar: MusyngKite soundfont by Benjamin Gleitzman, CC BY-SA 3.0.