Blues Soloing Strategies for Guitar: Guitar Book & CD

This book cuts through generic blues instruction by anchoring every concept in real solos from working musicians. Riker dissects 16 complete performances across seven distinct regional and stylistic traditions, so your students see exactly how professionals construct their phrases, negotiate the form, and bend the rules. The included CD lets them hear and play along with each solo immediately, collapsing the gap between understanding and doing.

Raw and street-level. These are authentic solos from real blues players, not sanitized transcriptions of "what works." You hear the tension and release, the space and density, the moments when a soloist commits to a phrase and lets it breathe. The book respects your ear and your intelligence, breaking down why these solos matter without reducing them to formulas.

Intermediate to advanced guitarists ready to move beyond scale shapes and learn how professional improvisers actually think through solos. This works equally well for self-directed practice, studio instruction, or ensemble players looking to deepen their blues language. Players coming from jazz, rock, or funk backgrounds will find the cross-pollination of styles especially valuable.

• Work through the solos in the order presented rather than cherry-picking styles. Each progression builds familiarity with form and phrasing logic that informs the next.
• Use the CD to isolate how each soloist enters the form and handles the turnaround. Hearing these moments in context is faster than reading about them.
• Slow the CD tracks down if needed to catch rhythmic nuances. Blues phrasing often rides ahead of or behind the beat in ways notation alone cannot capture.
• Record yourself soloing over the accompaniment tracks and compare your phrasing choices to the models in the book. This feedback loop accelerates your stylistic vocabulary.

Assign this to guitarists preparing for small ensemble gigs, jazz combos, or blues-informed rock projects. It works well as a semester-long deep dive for a private student or as a reference for electric guitar electives. The variety of styles means different students can gravitate toward Chicago, Delta, or funk approaches that match their musical interests.

• Analyzing blues form and soloing structure across twelve-bar and extended changes
• Recognizing and replicating stylistic phrasing in Chicago, Delta, rock, funk, jump, jazz, and minor blues
• Transcribing rhythm and pitch relationships from recorded solos
• Developing call-and-response techniques and turnaround navigation
• Building vocabulary to create original solos grounded in authentic blues language