Mini Blues Rock Guitar Licks

In this video guitar lesson I’m going to show you a few short blues rock guitar licks. It’s really just taking the same guitar lick idea and applying it to different sets of notes. Using small blues guitar lick ideas and moving them to different sets of notes is a powerful idea you can use in your guitar solos.

Blues Rock Guitar Licks

(Video Guitar Lesson)

Guitar Lick Factory – Play cool sounding rock and blues guitar licks…without having to memorize long hard to remember phrases?

All of the rock blues guitar licks in this lesson are going to be in the key of C, and will work well over a C7 chord in bluesy context.

I will go over what scales are used in each rock guitar lick, but the main thing you need to know is were the root is. In this case the root is C which is indicated in the tablature for all of the blues licks.

So if you want to play these blues rock guitar licks in other keys, you will just need to move them up or down the neck to where you want the root. So if you wanted to play these guitar licks in the key of D, just move them all up 2 frets.

Blues Rock Guitar Lick #1 Tablature

Blues rock guitar lick #1 comes out of a combination of a C Major Pentatonic Scale and a C Minor Pentatonic Scale. It starts with a half step reverse bend at the 10th fret on the 1st string. That’s where you pre bend up a half step, and the release it back down. After that is a pull off to the 8th fret.

For more on reading guitar scale charts like below, check out my video guitar lesson “Intro to Scales on the Guitar“.

C Major Pentatonic – Guitar Scale Chart

C Minor Pentatonic – Guitar Scale Chart

Blues Rock Guitar Lick #2 Tablature

Blues rock guitar lick #2 is really just the same finger motions as the first lick, but now playing them with a different set of notes out of a Blues Scale.

C Blues Scale – Guitar Scale Chart

Blues Rock Guitar Lick #3 Tablature

Blues rock guitar lick #3 is exactly the same as lick #2. But you are going to play it down 3 frets. Not changing keys, but just changing scales in the same key.

So the notes now come out of a C Major Pentatonic scale with an added b3. This is the same fingering as the Blues Scale, but the notes take on a new character against the C7 chord in this position.

So it’s just a C Major Pentatonic Scale, but with 1 note from a C Minor Pentatonic Scale. What is known as a flat 3, or the minor 3rd. Don’t worry about all of the music theory at the moment. Just know that is works over C7, and learn where the root is in the guitar lick.

C Major Pentatonic with added b3 – Guitar Scale Chart

Jam Tracks

Here are a couple of jam tracks to put your new blues rock guitar licks to the test. They are both just a groove over a C7 chord. One at 90 bpm (beats per minute) and the other at 120bpm.