Soloing chords/progression matchups?

[bluesboyorange]

When there is a normal blues in a certain key, suppose in the key of E, I know that just playing an E pentatonic "works" but it sounds repeated and predictable. I know one can use different scales, arpeggios etc. for different parts of the progression, but I don't really know what scales and chord shapes sound good with what key is being played. I'm sorry if this question is confusing or vague,

[boneyguy]

Playing an E minor pent can sound boring but there are lots of great blues players who can play that single pent scale over all the chords of a typical I - IV - V twelve bar blues and sound exciting and fresh. It's more about feel and phrasing than about having a vast array of notes to choose from

Here's something I might suggest you give a try just to begin with (if you're not already doing it). Take that E minor pent scale and play it over all 3 chords ( eg. E7 - A7 - B7) However, every time the chord changes make sure you land on the root note of that chord right on beat one of the chord change. So when the chord moves to an A7 , land on the note 'A' from the E pent minor scale. Same thing for the change to B7 (land on the note 'B') and land on the note 'E' when it returns to E7.

What this is doing is teaching you to outline the chord changes using the notes already available in the E minor pent scale. This is a simple but an amazingly useful move. It makes it sound like your playing is deliberate as opposed to simply randomly doodling notes. It gives a strong sense of purpose to your playing. It makes it sound like you mean it and in the Blues that's important.

Ater you land on the note that is the root of each chord you can then turn that into a lick until the chord changes and then ..bam...make sure you land on the next root note when the chord changes.

There are other good notes you can choose to land on other than the root of the chord but this is probably the best place to begin.


Practice this in one key in all the various postions on the fretboard and begin to notice patterns.

I know that this doesn't really answer your original question but I think what I've suggested might be a good place to start because introducing other scales at this point may just be adding more notes to be boring with. Learn to be deliberate, purposeful and rhythmically creative with the notes you already have at your fingertips and then move on from there.

[superhand]

You can get a lot of mileage out of the minor pentatonic in a blues format. But try throwing in a major 3rd sometimes instead of the minor 3rd. And you can use the flat 5th between the 4th and the 5th and the 7th between the flat 7th and the octave as a leading tone I think it is called. Those are notes that sound like they are going somewhere, not usually notes to land on or to hold very long.

I also agree with the boneyguy that phrasing is very important to making it interesting to listen to. I would add that technique has a lot to do with it to. Varying your pick attack and using a little vibrato and some bends can help too. Just don't over do it.