Jam Sessions - All Blues Styles

Lesson 2 - Blues in D

Lesson SampleReady to jam?! In this lesson you'll learn a couple different rhythm riffs and 3 different solos made from 3 different scales. Here's your jam track. This is a classic progression used in the blues/rock style. Try this with either super clean or slightly distorted tone, add chorus and a little bit of reverb. Notice the Cadd9 and G chords both use the 3rd and 4th fingers, so does the Dsus4 chord. Here's how I suggest playing the rhythm part:

Here's another way of playing the 3 basic chords.

Since the D chord is NOT a minor chord, the D major pentatonic would be my first choice of scales to use:

Here's a little solo from this scale:

The major pentatonic against the major chord gives you a strong sound. To get a blues-ier sound, try the minor pentatonic against the major chord.

Now listen to this solo. It is the same thing only using the D minor pentatonic. Notice it has a raunchier and bluesy tone to the over-all sound:

There is another good scale you can use to jam with, the D mixolydian mode:

The mixolydian mode is the dominant scale. It is the 5th mode of the G major scale. It has 7 different tones in it, making it more melodic sounding than the 5 tone pentatonic scales. Here's an example: