Wow! I got so much insight into BB King's style through the process of making this video. I hope you do too through watching it GUITAR IN HAND! Let me know what you'd like to see next. Here are the many chapters to this very long lesson: Chapters: BB PLAYING AND TEACHING 0:00 - BB’s Slow Blues Solo in G bar 1 riff (I) 0:05 - Bars 2-3 riff (IV-I) 0:12 - Bars 3-4 riff (I) 0:17 - Bars 4-5 riff (I-IV) 0:23 - Bar 6-7 riff (IV-I) 0:28 - Bar 7-8 riff (I) 0:33 - Bars 8-9 riff (I-V) 0:39 - Bars 10-11 riff (V-I) 0:45 - bar 11 riff (I) 0:46 - BBs teaching segment intro 0:57 - BB gives examples of what he plays on each chord 1:31 - BB’s second set of examples over the chord changes LESSON INTRO 3:27 - Gary’s intro to the lesson 4:23 - Gary’s intro to “workshopping” BBs riffs to make them your own 4:50 - Gary’s teaching philosophy for this lesson PROMO SEGMENT 5:05 - TAB for Patrons overview 5:13 - fretLIVE Fretboard Mastery Program Overview 5:48 - FREE .pdfs overview - pentatonic and diatonic scales LESSON SEGMENT 5:59 - All about STRINGS…and clips of me breaking a bunch making this! 8:44 - Intro Solo Bar 1 (I) breakdown 9:30 - Lesson on what I mean by “chord tones” or “outlining the chord” 10:41 - Bars 2-3 riff (IV-I) breakdown 13:50 - a quick note on BB’s vibrato and why I won’t teach it to you 15:27 - bar 3-4 riff (I) breakdown 16:46 - bar 4-5 riff (I-IV) breakdown 18:34 - bar 6-7 riff (IV-I) breakdown 20:35 - bar 7-8 riff (I) breakdown 21:35 - bar 8-9 riff (I-V) breakdown and MIXOLYDIAN MODE lesson 24:12 - bar 10-12 riffs (V-I) breakdown 25:46 - some context about this clip as it relates to the full masterclass 26:26 - The BB Box vs. the House of Blues or Albert King Box 27:50 - BB’s raking technique to fatten up a note 28:28 - Moving the BB Box up and down the neck for I-IV-V 29:09 - Demo of me playing the solo note for note, then “workshopping it” 31:11 - 12 Bars of Backing track for you to solo 32:03 - THANK YOU POW MUSIC PATRONS!!!!
BB plays a Gibson which has a shorter scale length. Shorter scale lenght equal shorter string length from bridge to nut. Shorter string means less tension to hit a certain frequency. Lower tension means easier bends. This lower tension combined with the lower string gauge does the trick.
I haven't picked up my Guitar since 2018 do to spinal cord surgery and wouldn't pick it up knowing the accident,limited my Motor Skills( Fear ! ) till I saw this video of B.B'S Guitar lesson with you. I would like to Thank you for making the Video, as it inspired me So that I CLEANED my Guitars and so very happy,( like a kid in a Candy Store !) I Will attempt to play, and if not( so well? ...Strengthen my hands and Dive into the Music that I Love So Much... THE BLUES !!! Thank you for Doing this Video👍👌👏
This is literally exactly what every player wanted when they saw this video. There’s so much to learn here and this makes it incredibly easy to take in. Thank you so much for doing this
My brother bought a BB King tour programme for a couple of quid at an used record store. When he opened it up he found that the centrefold had been signed by the man himself!
This should be the new standard for guitar instruction on RUclips. Seeing the masters play it and having the real-time diagram underneath. Brilliant!!!
So cool to see that BB wasn't just noodling over everything with the minor pentatonic scale. He played the chord changes. Great graphics btw. Subscribed.
@@burnertrump875 Well some do it by feel but yes if they play the right notes every single time you may begin to suspect they know what they're doing.
Or you could argue that all those "great blues licks" are really nothing more than simple pentatonic scales and people still claiming that the emporer is wearing clothes.
@@smaller_cathedrals it's never been a secret that blues is relatively simple, easy to play. Its about HOW you play it and how creative you are with your playing. Blues is about soul and feeling, not technicality. All guitar solos are based off scales btw.
@@ploopy8780 Depends on how you play it. You can also make it complicated if you step out of the standard 12Bar-Blues shape. You can choose all kind of chords and chords that lead to the 3 main ones the I, the IV and the V. Same with scales. Over a blues with dominant 7 chords for example you can use major and minor pentatonic plus the diatonic scales that belong to each. Also you can play mixolydian and altered scales. On a minor blues you could play all kinds of minor scales. So you have a lot of possibilities to make it complicated but I think music shouldn't be about playing the most scales and doing the most complicated fastest stuff. For me it's about expressing feelings. To be able to do this properly you need to know all you vocabulary like all the different scales, way of phrasing, rhythm etc. but once you know all that you should cut everything back to the least needed material to express your feelings and exactly know how and when to play a tone that is not in the pentatonic. Same with tempo. You should be able to play really fast but only use that in very certain moments. At least thats my philosophy in music. Hope you understand what I mean my english is not the best.
Dude I love your animations. The first time I saw them was on the John Mayer video. I thought wow John Mayer has got an awesome animation department and knows how to do it right.
its NOT advanced... it's lower middle.... tomm,y emmanuel teaches learn ONE bar at at time till you got it.... (slow the video down to .25 and you can follow easily) it's really quite simple.... no shredding or crazy techniques... SLOW IT DOWN TO LEARN IT..... THEN LISTEN TO IT WITHOUT PLAYING ALONG.... this gets it into your brain.... take you a week or 2 ... maybe practice 2 / 3 hours per day.... then its YOURS
I'm new to learning blues and can't really play guitar but I'm learning.. I'm getting an understanding of blues and actually see this before anything was said, I recognised it was 1,4,5 in G and could see how he was using the scales to match the chords being used for the rhythm. It legitimately gave me chills! Amazing and humbling!
It’s really like…. a diamond in the rough to find this kind of content on YT. Always so impressed with this channel! (& grateful!) 🙏🏻 I’m going to have to stock up on a heck of a lot of strings for this one though…😭🤣😆
SUPERB....!!!!!!!!!! You can lower the tuning in half or one note, solve strings tension and breakage. Mate, Strat is not the sound, pick any Gibson you'll get it
An absolute master and legend! And in this, you hear why... it's all about feel, emotion, economy of playing notes, and all delivered with his iconic hand-shaking vibrato. What he teaches you here is that you don't have to play a bunch of notes to say what you want to say and convey feeling...less is more. B.B. could say more and produce feeling with just one note...but that one note is played effectively and with conviction! R.I.P. B.B....you are greatly missed! 🎸❤️🙏👏
I've been teaching myself to play Blues guitar for over 40 years. There's a ton of licks that B.B. plays that other Blues guitarists don't play. But a real revelation for me was learning to bend with my first finger. For some reason it never occurred to me to do this. Perhaps because one doesn't have the other fingers to strengthen the bend. The other thing integral to playing like B.B. are those sharp fifth passing tones and major thirds. And of course B.B.'s "stinging" vibrato. I shook his hand once during a gig here in Chicago in the 1980s. B.B. had hands as meaty as smoked hams. There was a whole lot of power behind his bends, trills, and trademark "fluttering" vibrato.
Your videos are very cool and revolutionary! I hope you'll do more! Expecially for jazz players (but also fusion and shred)... So cool dude! I imagine an app like so... Will be amazing!
I, too, saw the original video a number of times. However, your breakdown illuminates so much and makes it all very accessible. Thanks for putting this together. Your presentations are amongst the best on RUclips in my opinion.
I started flinching every bend waiting on those strings to break. Never had that much trouble. Something rough/binding or you have razor fingers lol. I play with 10s. Smaller gauge gets fragile with those tone and a half bends I guess.
I do think my particular finger sweat is corrosive! But I also don’t think all strings are created equal. Gonna check out some other brands. I usually use elixir and rarely break their strings
Im not sure why youtube didnt recomend this video sooner. Id been looking at B.B. King lick tutorials for a while. But a tutorial by the man himself omg this is amazing thank you so much for the animations too SO HELPFUL!
This is absolutely outstanding! Your method of superimposing the fretboard is brilliant. It makes it so much easier to see the notes, patterns, and understand the relationships to the blues scale. So much to learn in this lesson. Thank you for all the effort you put into this lesson.
just pure brilliance...these guys didnt need musiic theory...they just live and feel the music!! BB didnt play the blues....HE LIVED THE BLUES and you really hear that in his expression!
He absolutely uses music theory whether he knows hes using it or not everything he plays relates to music theory especially the scales he uses in his phrasings. Theres alot of guitar wannabes that refuse to learn music theory because they think the legends didnt know it, which is entirely false not including the virtuosos
Gary I must commend you on this, I seen this video I love it, it's the Gospel of BB I call it you have as clearly explained with amazing detail, eventually when things get better, you might see me again on Sunday night or afternoon , this lesson is golden, really appreciate the hard work you put into this ,
I bought a new Gibson 335 today..... and after watching this vid.... i asked the shop to string it up with 008 Ernie Balls.... sure makes life easy .... thanks.... busted nuttin yet....
BB is the Man. Bought a 335 in high school, about 73, when everyone else was getting Strats & Les Pauls. But You Sir, have put aLOT of respectable work into this. Opened some doors for me. Thanks ♣️
I can’t thank you enough. It’s come at the very time I decided I must stop being lazy and polish up my solo skills. At 70 it’s about time. Thanks again.
I wonder how much string tension has to do with him bending when he doesn't need to. Different strings do sound slightly different even on the same note because of string gauge and tension. Wonder if this is why he bends. To add that extra bit of tension on the string that adds a bit of tone difference.
I don,t know if someone has pointed this out but the reason you are breaking so many strings is probably the scale length of your guitars, BB plays a 335 style guitar that has a gibson scale 24.75 length and the strats have a bigger scale, the fender scale, 25.5. Less tension probably equals less broken strings imo
Great video. Well explained. I never knew BB King was doing all these things. Clever playing. A friend of mine met BB King and asked him how to get good on guitar. BB said, "Play guitar!"
These videos help me so much..As a beginner I have days that I just wanna learn and hear myself make some music and feel good about my playing..These help so much. I know very little about theory but I can copy and attempt..I feel like I'm learning better
String breakage - all to do with scale length and string tension. The longer the scale length, the higher the tension needs to be to bring the string up to pitch. So when playing a BB lick (usually played on a Gibson - shorter scale) on an Strat you'll break strings. Try playing the lick at a different position on a different string further up the neck - al la Dave Gilmour (e.g. solo in Another brick)
All I can say is thank you. I have watched so many of these guys talk about BB King and try to show what he is showing but you made it so easy to follow. Dude keep pumping videos out, you will have the most subscribers. I am in San Diego and if there is anything I can to help you let me know. I really appreciate what you have done. All I can say San Diego has the best weather in the world, if you ever come out here I love to meet you. Thank you once again. No joke.
Thank you for this wonderful lesson. I was 15 minutes into this video and broke already 2 E strings on the Fender Strat.... I grabbed my 335 with 10's and no string brake.... I think this has something to do with the scale length . It's easier to bend on a Gibson then on a Fender in my humble opinion. I subscibed to your wonderful channel!
I know I've already said this but I'm gonna keep commenting it until it's posted- THANKS IN ADVANCE!! Can you please do this to the 1979 live version of the sky is crying by SRV??? PLEASE!!!
The guitar scale length is responsible for string breakage. BB's Gibson is a 24.75 inch scale length vs the 25.25 inch of your Strats. the smaller scale = less stress on the strings and it's much easier to bend. I bought a "Gibson Conversion 24.75" scale" neck from Warmoth for one of my Strats and I've never broken a string. I then grabbed my standard Strat and after ten min of finger bleeding bends the stringed popped. I replaced with an 8 gauge string and same issue....popped the string quickly. My 24.75" scale strat has 10 guage string and I've yet to pop it. the string tension between 24.75" and 25.25" is really noticeable.
Very nice work :) thanks , if you practice, tune the guitar 1/2 step down... so the there would be no string problems ^^ because there's less tension :)
Every time I get stagnant with my music, I go back to the Blues! I think it's kind of humbling, to tell you the truth! "Everyday, I got the Blues"! 🌎✌️🔀🎶
This is my new favorite RUclips channel for learning guitar! the animated tabs are extremely helpful for the visual learners. I can usually hear what notes people are playing when transcribing songs, but it can sometimes create a whole other (sometimes rather extensive) process of finding out where on the fret board they're playing them and how that ties into the overall flow of what is being played. Also, sometimes if your guitar tone is too different from the person you're transcribing, it can make it even trickier in ways one may not expect. I will say that BB Bends are substantial but not anywhere close to justifying 3 broken strings in one hour. That isn't normal even if you were doing 4-5 semitone bends which would cause maybe one breakage per hour at most, but even that's a bit of a stretch (pun not intended). I do BB bends all day on several of my guitars and I don't think I've ever broken a high E string when doing so. There is likely something that needs addressing with your guitar. I would first check the bridge saddles, nut slots, and tuning posts for burrs which is the likely culprit.
I can’t imagine the time that went into this animation. And the editing. It’s not especially hard stuff; this was a series of VHS tapes released when I was starting playing guitar in my teens and it came with a little “transcription” tabs pamphlet that was partial at best. BB’s best, fiery and advanced playing days were behind him at this point. He was in his “play vegas casinos” point in his career. His mid 1960s and early 1970s fire were gone, but, he aged like a fine wine 🍷 and the IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING YOUR SCALE TONES AND MELODIC INTERVALS cannot be overstated. You’ll never be able to express yourself clearly on guitar if you don’t understand and be able to aurally recognize your scale tones. See how the teacher in this video changed the riffs to make them his own? That is PRECISELY how to be a riff generator. Yeah it’s hard work. So get to it!
Prodigious people are capable of doing things that are complex and simple at the same time. With a simple pentatonic scale and his minimalist style, BB King was able to bring a unique style and feeling to his compositions. May God rest his soul. Sorry for my bad English.
Thank you so much!!! Superb video. I'm crossing fingers for a tutorial on the late great Hubert Sumlin who played the guitar with Howlin' Wolf. That or Muddy Waters.
B.B. was the man he was truly the King of the Blues there isn't a guitarist alive that doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to this man whether they know it or not! RIP Legend.
Re all the string breaking on extreme bends, BB plays a Gibson ie shorter scale length guitar than a strat, so there’s lower string tension to begin with. Much easier to bend notes on. BTW Hendrix typically tuned his guitar down a semitone and got a similar advantage.
Hey thank you. I appreciate the effort that you did. I am recovering from a coma and I am learning how to do solo's on the guitar. I know how to play rhythm like a champ but now I am trying to learn to solos. I appreciate what you have done. I am not working but when I get back to work I plan to give you some money. I appreciate what you have done. You should keep on promoting your videos because what you have provided is priceless. Thank you very much.
I cannot tell you how much these videos have helped me to get through the pandemic. Please please please consider doing Johnny Winters or Freddie King. Thank you again.
As many others have said, this is a fantastic instructional video...! The combination of your expert guitar demonstration, clear explanation of music theory, and especially the sophisticated fretboard graphic showing note intervals and bends as SCALE NUMBERS (not finger numbers, as many others do), makes for an extremely powerful teaching resource that can be applied to other instruments besides guitar (I'm a harmonica player, as it happens!). It's the first time I came across your channel, and I'm well impressed!! I'll be subscribing and look forward to checking out more of your videos. Thanks so much for the time and effort you put in, and keep up the great work! 👍
Dude i really want to thank you. I worked on your 2.5 Pentatonic Scales Approach and now you show me the master of the house of blues to really add the soul when using it.
Been playing since '65, Blues/R&B/Jazz. I still play and use 11's. After years of using 12's, I had to go to 11's in 2020. The ol' fingers just ain't what they used to be. I just LOVE the sound of the thicker strings. BB bends his strings up when he implements vibrato. Most guitarist in my time also did that. The only time I ever bend a string down is implementing vibrato on the low E string. Bending strings down just never seemed natural to me.
Great lesson, thank you so much. I broke the high e string 5 minutes ago playing 9 strings 😂. Why the heck is Gibson selling 10s as 'B.B. King signature' strings? It is well known that he used to play 8 strings.
Wow! your graphics are flat out amazing! People don't realize how much time this sort of stuff takes.....man you even had BB's finger tremolo in time! Well done, fantastic video!!! Im a subscriber for life....
This is the type of playing that if you know a little about guitar, you think "thats just some blues noodling" and if you know a lot about theory and have been playing for years you think "this is a masterpiece". He just used 10 different notes G A Bb B C Db D E F F# in his 12 bar blues and made it sound so tasteful and soulful and simple.
Hearing you break strings is so damned gratifying..... I dont know why.. But it just feels great! I think you'll need to do a "broken string" compilation. it would be epic!
Wow! I got so much insight into BB King's style through the process of making this video. I hope you do too through watching it GUITAR IN HAND! Let me know what you'd like to see next. Here are the many chapters to this very long lesson:
Chapters:
BB PLAYING AND TEACHING
0:00 - BB’s Slow Blues Solo in G bar 1 riff (I)
0:05 - Bars 2-3 riff (IV-I)
0:12 - Bars 3-4 riff (I)
0:17 - Bars 4-5 riff (I-IV)
0:23 - Bar 6-7 riff (IV-I)
0:28 - Bar 7-8 riff (I)
0:33 - Bars 8-9 riff (I-V)
0:39 - Bars 10-11 riff (V-I)
0:45 - bar 11 riff (I)
0:46 - BBs teaching segment intro
0:57 - BB gives examples of what he plays on each chord
1:31 - BB’s second set of examples over the chord changes
LESSON INTRO
3:27 - Gary’s intro to the lesson
4:23 - Gary’s intro to “workshopping” BBs riffs to make them your own
4:50 - Gary’s teaching philosophy for this lesson
PROMO SEGMENT
5:05 - TAB for Patrons overview
5:13 - fretLIVE Fretboard Mastery Program Overview
5:48 - FREE .pdfs overview - pentatonic and diatonic scales
LESSON SEGMENT
5:59 - All about STRINGS…and clips of me breaking a bunch making this!
8:44 - Intro Solo Bar 1 (I) breakdown
9:30 - Lesson on what I mean by “chord tones” or “outlining the chord”
10:41 - Bars 2-3 riff (IV-I) breakdown
13:50 - a quick note on BB’s vibrato and why I won’t teach it to you
15:27 - bar 3-4 riff (I) breakdown
16:46 - bar 4-5 riff (I-IV) breakdown
18:34 - bar 6-7 riff (IV-I) breakdown
20:35 - bar 7-8 riff (I) breakdown
21:35 - bar 8-9 riff (I-V) breakdown and MIXOLYDIAN MODE lesson
24:12 - bar 10-12 riffs (V-I) breakdown
25:46 - some context about this clip as it relates to the full masterclass
26:26 - The BB Box vs. the House of Blues or Albert King Box
27:50 - BB’s raking technique to fatten up a note
28:28 - Moving the BB Box up and down the neck for I-IV-V
29:09 - Demo of me playing the solo note for note, then “workshopping it”
31:11 - 12 Bars of Backing track for you to solo
32:03 - THANK YOU POW MUSIC PATRONS!!!!
BB plays a Gibson which has a shorter scale length. Shorter scale lenght equal shorter string length from bridge to nut. Shorter string means less tension to hit a certain frequency. Lower tension means easier bends. This lower tension combined with the lower string gauge does the trick.
I've always disliked bbk style of playing he sux. But his vocals awwwsum 🙏🙏 sorry for my comment
@@teawabrown7861 K
@@makertje84 He plays 10's. If you put 9's on a 25.5 scale you're at about the same place tension-wise.
I haven't picked up my Guitar since 2018 do to spinal cord surgery and wouldn't pick it up knowing the accident,limited my Motor Skills( Fear ! ) till I saw this video of B.B'S Guitar lesson with you. I would like to Thank you for making the Video, as it inspired me So that I CLEANED my Guitars and so very happy,( like a kid in a Candy Store !) I Will attempt to play, and if not( so well? ...Strengthen my hands and Dive into the Music that I Love So Much... THE BLUES !!! Thank you for Doing this Video👍👌👏
Just the animation alone must've taken so long. And then transcribing and editing? You're the man!!
This video deserves more views
I'm impressed with this channel. It's really great work.
thanks for the hardwork
Absolutely. First music/guitar video where I've seen something like this. Awesome stuff.
Thank so much. BB King's doesn't seem complicated until you try to play any of his stuff note for note.
This is literally exactly what every player wanted when they saw this video. There’s so much to learn here and this makes it incredibly easy to take in. Thank you so much for doing this
and so satisfying for slow fingers like most of us. forget about shredding or tapping, slow is the news fast ;)
Mega 🙌🏻
100%
My brother bought a BB King tour programme for a couple of quid at an used record store. When he opened it up he found that the centrefold had been signed by the man himself!
That’s awesome!
This should be the new standard for guitar instruction on RUclips. Seeing the masters play it and having the real-time diagram underneath. Brilliant!!!
You've put countless hours into making these kinds of videos for your fellow guitar players. Much appreciated friend, thanks.
Thank you
Man his phrasing is just, the licks aren't even that complicated but the feel man, good lord.
That’s the hardest part, and the only part that’s impossible to teach
So cool to see that BB wasn't just noodling over everything with the minor pentatonic scale. He played the chord changes. Great graphics btw. Subscribed.
Isn't this something you should have heard a long time ago and not had to "see"?
@@burnertrump875 Well some do it by feel but yes if they play the right notes every single time you may begin to suspect they know what they're doing.
You suspected BB king, regarded as one of if not the greatest blues guitarist, of just noodling around in the minor pentatonic? 😅
So much for the belief he didn't have any idea what he was playing.
😂😂😂 for anyone to believe that about a professional musician is just dumb.
I think it’s your guitar that leads to strings breaking. Gibson neck and bridge make it effortless to bend, really.
String gauge also makes a difference, super light strings tend to break faster
Thanks so much. I've watched the original video many times but wasn't exactly sure which notes Mr. King was playing.
Same
Same as me
same bro
Simple pentatonic scale turned into great blues licks.. just amazing..
Or you could argue that all those "great blues licks" are really nothing more than simple pentatonic scales and people still claiming that the emporer is wearing clothes.
@@smaller_cathedrals well, I dont want to argue about this. If you think like that, I respect your opinion.
@@smaller_cathedrals it's never been a secret that blues is relatively simple, easy to play. Its about HOW you play it and how creative you are with your playing. Blues is about soul and feeling, not technicality.
All guitar solos are based off scales btw.
@@smaller_cathedrals and playing the guitar is simply pushing down a string on a fret
@@ploopy8780 Depends on how you play it. You can also make it complicated if you step out of the standard 12Bar-Blues shape. You can choose all kind of chords and chords that lead to the 3 main ones the I, the IV and the V. Same with scales. Over a blues with dominant 7 chords for example you can use major and minor pentatonic plus the diatonic scales that belong to each. Also you can play mixolydian and altered scales. On a minor blues you could play all kinds of minor scales. So you have a lot of possibilities to make it complicated but I think music shouldn't be about playing the most scales and doing the most complicated fastest stuff. For me it's about expressing feelings. To be able to do this properly you need to know all you vocabulary like all the different scales, way of phrasing, rhythm etc. but once you know all that you should cut everything back to the least needed material to express your feelings and exactly know how and when to play a tone that is not in the pentatonic. Same with tempo. You should be able to play really fast but only use that in very certain moments. At least thats my philosophy in music. Hope you understand what I mean my english is not the best.
Dude I love your animations. The first time I saw them was on the John Mayer video.
I thought wow John Mayer has got an awesome animation department and knows how to do it right.
Hahaha
Looks so technical. Learning how to play really well like the Masters takes years and patience.
its NOT advanced... it's lower middle.... tomm,y emmanuel teaches learn ONE bar at at time till you got it.... (slow the video down to .25 and you can follow easily) it's really quite simple.... no shredding or crazy techniques... SLOW IT DOWN TO LEARN IT..... THEN LISTEN TO IT WITHOUT PLAYING ALONG.... this gets it into your brain.... take you a week or 2 ... maybe practice 2 / 3 hours per day.... then its YOURS
This is such a huge lesson!!!! BB makes it look so easy! respect to the King!
That was an outstanding video, the breakdown was just perfect. Thankyou.
I love this channel!
You’re a hero for doing all this hard work ! Thank you 🙏
I'm new to learning blues and can't really play guitar but I'm learning.. I'm getting an understanding of blues and actually see this before anything was said, I recognised it was 1,4,5 in G and could see how he was using the scales to match the chords being used for the rhythm.
It legitimately gave me chills!
Amazing and humbling!
It’s really like…. a diamond in the rough to find this kind of content on YT. Always so impressed with this channel! (& grateful!) 🙏🏻 I’m going to have to stock up on a heck of a lot of strings for this one though…😭🤣😆
SUPERB....!!!!!!!!!! You can lower the tuning in half or one note, solve strings tension and breakage. Mate, Strat is not the sound, pick any Gibson you'll get it
An absolute master and legend! And in this, you hear why... it's all about feel, emotion, economy of playing notes, and all delivered with his iconic hand-shaking vibrato.
What he teaches you here is that you don't have to play a bunch of notes to say what you want to say and convey feeling...less is more. B.B. could say more and produce feeling with just one note...but that one note is played effectively and with conviction!
R.I.P. B.B....you are greatly missed! 🎸❤️🙏👏
These are the very best tutorial videos on RUclips, thank you 🙏🏼, peace and love from Sydney, Australia
I've been teaching myself to play Blues guitar for over 40 years. There's a ton of licks that B.B. plays that other Blues guitarists don't play. But a real revelation for me was learning to bend with my first finger. For some reason it never occurred to me to do this. Perhaps because one doesn't have the other fingers to strengthen the bend. The other thing integral to playing like B.B. are those sharp fifth passing tones and major thirds. And of course B.B.'s "stinging" vibrato. I shook his hand once during a gig here in Chicago in the 1980s. B.B. had hands as meaty as smoked hams. There was a whole lot of power behind his bends, trills, and trademark "fluttering" vibrato.
Your videos are very cool and revolutionary! I hope you'll do more! Expecially for jazz players (but also fusion and shred)... So cool dude! I imagine an app like so... Will be amazing!
This goes to show there's way more to his playing than many realize. Listen to his earlier jump stuff and it's on the brink of jazz
I know how to play this and have been watching this for decades now. And, EVERYTIME, BB King sounds absolutely incredible. BB King IS blues.
This just shows how natural the blues came to Mr. BB King.
The blues didn’t come to him he was the living embodiment of the blues 😂😂😂
I had to slow the video down to 0:25 X to understand all this playing .
whatever it takes! Glad that helped!
Bro this kind of effort you put on the lesson shouldn't even be free but you put it out there. You're a legend! Hope you get more subs!
One minute of silence for all those E strings that didn't make it
I, too, saw the original video a number of times. However, your breakdown illuminates so much and makes it all very accessible. Thanks for putting this together. Your presentations are amongst the best on RUclips in my opinion.
I started flinching every bend waiting on those strings to break. Never had that much trouble. Something rough/binding or you have razor fingers lol. I play with 10s. Smaller gauge gets fragile with those tone and a half bends I guess.
I do think my particular finger sweat is corrosive! But I also don’t think all strings are created equal. Gonna check out some other brands. I usually use elixir and rarely break their strings
Im not sure why youtube didnt recomend this video sooner. Id been looking at B.B. King lick tutorials for a while. But a tutorial by the man himself omg this is amazing thank you so much for the animations too SO HELPFUL!
Glad you found it helpful
I'm from Mississippi it was in the air growing up the cultural of the SIPP
This is absolutely outstanding! Your method of superimposing the fretboard is brilliant. It makes it so much easier to see the notes, patterns, and understand the relationships to the blues scale. So much to learn in this lesson. Thank you for all the effort you put into this lesson.
just pure brilliance...these guys didnt need musiic theory...they just live and feel the music!! BB didnt play the blues....HE LIVED THE BLUES and you really hear that in his expression!
He absolutely uses music theory whether he knows hes using it or not everything he plays relates to music theory especially the scales he uses in his phrasings. Theres alot of guitar wannabes that refuse to learn music theory because they think the legends didnt know it, which is entirely false not including the virtuosos
Fantastic, I've watched BB do this lesson for years but the best thing is your breakdown, WONDERFUL.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, God blessed 🙏😇
Gary I must commend you on this, I seen this video I love it, it's the Gospel of BB I call it you have as clearly explained with amazing detail, eventually when things get better, you might see me again on Sunday night or afternoon , this lesson is golden, really appreciate the hard work you put into this ,
I bought a new Gibson 335 today..... and after watching this vid.... i asked the shop to string it up with 008 Ernie Balls.... sure makes life easy .... thanks.... busted nuttin yet....
BB is the Man.
Bought a 335 in high school, about 73, when everyone else was getting Strats & Les Pauls. But You Sir, have put aLOT of respectable work into this. Opened some doors for me. Thanks ♣️
Me to when everyone else was buying strats and Les Pauls, I went and brought a ES325.
I can’t thank you enough. It’s come at the very time I decided I must stop being lazy and polish up my solo skills. At 70 it’s about time. Thanks again.
I wonder how much string tension has to do with him bending when he doesn't need to. Different strings do sound slightly different even on the same note because of string gauge and tension. Wonder if this is why he bends. To add that extra bit of tension on the string that adds a bit of tone difference.
I don,t know if someone has pointed this out but the reason you are breaking so many strings is probably the scale length of your guitars, BB plays a 335 style guitar that has a gibson scale 24.75 length and the strats have a bigger scale, the fender scale, 25.5. Less tension probably equals less broken strings imo
You might also try tuning all the strings down a half step.
Man, you are doing an amazing job with these videos, thank u so much!
Great video. Well explained. I never knew BB King was doing all these things. Clever playing.
A friend of mine met BB King and asked him how to get good on guitar. BB said, "Play guitar!"
These videos help me so much..As a beginner I have days that I just wanna learn and hear myself make some music and feel good about my playing..These help so much. I know very little about theory but I can copy and attempt..I feel like I'm learning better
Have fun and enjoy the process! 🎸
String breakage - all to do with scale length and string tension. The longer the scale length, the higher the tension needs to be to bring the string up to pitch. So when playing a BB lick (usually played on a Gibson - shorter scale) on an Strat you'll break strings. Try playing the lick at a different position on a different string further up the neck - al la Dave Gilmour (e.g. solo in Another brick)
You can also detune a half or whole step to lower the tension.
All I can say is thank you. I have watched so many of these guys talk about BB King and try to show what he is showing but you made it so easy to follow. Dude keep pumping videos out, you will have the most subscribers. I am in San Diego and if there is anything I can to help you let me know. I really appreciate what you have done. All I can say San Diego has the best weather in the world, if you ever come out here I love to meet you. Thank you once again. No joke.
Thank you so much Shawn!
What i like about BB, he knows exactly what he does on the fretboard with Notes
Thank you for this wonderful lesson. I was 15 minutes into this video and broke already 2 E strings on the Fender Strat.... I grabbed my 335 with 10's and no string brake.... I think this has something to do with the scale length . It's easier to bend on a Gibson then on a Fender in my humble opinion. I subscibed to your wonderful channel!
Thanks Marco!
It's to do with the difference in string tensions relating to Fender vs Gibson style guitars.
Scale length & he uses light guage strings.
I know I've already said this but I'm gonna keep commenting it until it's posted- THANKS IN ADVANCE!! Can you please do this to the 1979 live version of the sky is crying by SRV??? PLEASE!!!
Wicked mate 👍🏻
The guitar scale length is responsible for string breakage. BB's Gibson is a 24.75 inch scale length vs the 25.25 inch of your Strats. the smaller scale = less stress on the strings and it's much easier to bend. I bought a "Gibson Conversion 24.75" scale" neck from Warmoth for one of my Strats and I've never broken a string. I then grabbed my standard Strat and after ten min of finger bleeding bends the stringed popped. I replaced with an 8 gauge string and same issue....popped the string quickly. My 24.75" scale strat has 10 guage string and I've yet to pop it. the string tension between 24.75" and 25.25" is really noticeable.
Love this format Gary
Very nice work :) thanks , if you practice, tune the guitar 1/2 step down... so the there would be no string problems ^^ because there's less tension :)
This is the best channel ever to learn guitar ever!!
Every time I get stagnant with my music, I go back to the Blues! I think it's kind of humbling, to tell you the truth! "Everyday, I got the Blues"!
🌎✌️🔀🎶
Just amazing. Thank you so much.
By the way, that explanation of the modes via the D myxolydian finally helped me to really understand the damn things! Thanks again.
This is my new favorite RUclips channel for learning guitar! the animated tabs are extremely helpful for the visual learners. I can usually hear what notes people are playing when transcribing songs, but it can sometimes create a whole other (sometimes rather extensive) process of finding out where on the fret board they're playing them and how that ties into the overall flow of what is being played. Also, sometimes if your guitar tone is too different from the person you're transcribing, it can make it even trickier in ways one may not expect.
I will say that BB Bends are substantial but not anywhere close to justifying 3 broken strings in one hour. That isn't normal even if you were doing 4-5 semitone bends which would cause maybe one breakage per hour at most, but even that's a bit of a stretch (pun not intended). I do BB bends all day on several of my guitars and I don't think I've ever broken a high E string when doing so. There is likely something that needs addressing with your guitar. I would first check the bridge saddles, nut slots, and tuning posts for burrs which is the likely culprit.
Thanks Anthony!
I can’t imagine the time that went into this animation. And the editing. It’s not especially hard stuff; this was a series of VHS tapes released when I was starting playing guitar in my teens and it came with a little “transcription” tabs pamphlet that was partial at best. BB’s best, fiery and advanced playing days were behind him at this point. He was in his “play vegas casinos” point in his career. His mid 1960s and early 1970s fire were gone, but, he aged like a fine wine 🍷 and the IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING YOUR SCALE TONES AND MELODIC INTERVALS cannot be overstated. You’ll never be able to express yourself clearly on guitar if you don’t understand and be able to aurally recognize your scale tones.
See how the teacher in this video changed the riffs to make them his own?
That is PRECISELY how to be a riff generator.
Yeah it’s hard work. So get to it!
thank you!
Incredibly valuable lesson. Thank you, Gary. You are a gift to us learners.
Great video thanks for sharing!
Prodigious people are capable of doing things that are complex and simple at the same time. With a simple pentatonic scale and his minimalist style, BB King was able to bring a unique style and feeling to his compositions. May God rest his soul. Sorry for my bad English.
Haha i feel you with the string break, my B string ALWAYS snaps when i play the whole lotta love solo and hit that big bend in it
That’s some phenomenal work !! Thanks for this amazing and helpful video, love your channel!! 🙂🎵please, don’t stop!
Cheers from France 🇫🇷
Thank you so much!!! Superb video. I'm crossing fingers for a tutorial on the late great Hubert Sumlin who played the guitar with Howlin' Wolf. That or Muddy Waters.
B.B. was the man he was truly the King of the Blues there isn't a guitarist alive that doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to this man whether they know it or not! RIP Legend.
Tripe
All BB King 👑 patterns learnt 🎸! New subscribed 2023 🤗
Great Channel great lessons
He is the king of soul without all the notes how soft he can play but it means so much. Can feel everything.
Hi new here this is so amazing thank you for doing this for all of us🙋💯🙏🎶🙆🎸
Re all the string breaking on extreme bends, BB plays a Gibson ie shorter scale length guitar than a strat, so there’s lower string tension to begin with. Much easier to bend notes on. BTW Hendrix typically tuned his guitar down a semitone and got a similar advantage.
Hey thank you. I appreciate the effort that you did. I am recovering from a coma and I am learning how to do solo's on the guitar. I know how to play rhythm like a champ but now I am trying to learn to solos. I appreciate what you have done. I am not working but when I get back to work I plan to give you some money. I appreciate what you have done. You should keep on promoting your videos because what you have provided is priceless. Thank you very much.
I cannot tell you how much these videos have helped me to get through the pandemic. Please please please consider doing Johnny Winters or Freddie King. Thank you again.
I love bb he is not only a great musician.but also a wonderful man.
Yup I've broke many strings werking on this lesson. grrr😁
Hi, great lesson!
I have that honeyburst American Strat. Your tone is great!
Are those the stock pickups and what is your signal chain?
Thanks - yep! The stock American standard pickups straight into a supro delta king 10 watt tube amp with a touch of reverb
Gorgeous! :)
As many others have said, this is a fantastic instructional video...! The combination of your expert guitar demonstration, clear explanation of music theory, and especially the sophisticated fretboard graphic showing note intervals and bends as SCALE NUMBERS (not finger numbers, as many others do), makes for an extremely powerful teaching resource that can be applied to other instruments besides guitar (I'm a harmonica player, as it happens!). It's the first time I came across your channel, and I'm well impressed!! I'll be subscribing and look forward to checking out more of your videos. Thanks so much for the time and effort you put in, and keep up the great work! 👍
An Amazing GUITAR LEGEND GOOD TO SEE YOU B.B. KING.
Dude i really want to thank you. I worked on your 2.5 Pentatonic Scales Approach and now you show me the master of the house of blues to really add the soul when using it.
😂😂😂😂 I've broken COUNTLESS strings doing Albert King bends 🤣🤣🤣
Broke my first pair trying bends 🤣 I’m hoping I can get pass next 2 weeks 🙃
Man, you've done a great and super precious work! Gold for my student, thank you so much!
watched BB's turorial on youtube trying to decypher note by note...its was a welcomed surprise you did a vid on this, great work as always
Thanks mate.. from this little clip lve got plenty to learn!
Transposing the fretboard & lights is so much better than tab.
Been playing since '65, Blues/R&B/Jazz. I still play and use 11's. After years of using 12's, I had to go to 11's in 2020. The ol' fingers just ain't what they used to be. I just LOVE the sound of the thicker strings. BB bends his strings up when he implements vibrato. Most guitarist in my time also did that. The only time I ever bend a string down is implementing vibrato on the low E string. Bending strings down just never seemed natural to me.
Great lesson, thank you so much. I broke the high e string 5 minutes ago playing 9 strings 😂.
Why the heck is Gibson selling 10s as 'B.B. King signature' strings? It is well known that he used to play 8 strings.
Can never ever ever get this to play on my phone endless load screen
Wow! your graphics are flat out amazing! People don't realize how much time this sort of stuff takes.....man you even had BB's finger tremolo in time! Well done, fantastic video!!! Im a subscriber for life....
thanks for recognizing that, Bret 🎸 I appreciate it
Thank you for everything sir, I always look forward to your videos
This is the type of playing that if you know a little about guitar, you think "thats just some blues noodling" and if you know a lot about theory and have been playing for years you think "this is a masterpiece". He just used 10 different notes G A Bb B C Db D E F F# in his 12 bar blues and made it sound so tasteful and soulful and simple.
Hearing you break strings is so damned gratifying..... I dont know why.. But it just feels great! I think you'll need to do a "broken string" compilation. it would be epic!
BB was really sophisticated ! Great player👌🏼
Complimenti. Lavoro fatto molto bene. Applausi 👏👏👏👏👏👏🎶
What a master of his craft. Amazing.
His phrasing is so awesome and tight. Guitarists are just composers that play an instrument. This man is such a gift to music.
I saw BB live and front row and it was amazing. He had such a classy blues show and he was so cool.
I’ve been trying to find the bbking song for the explained solo on Spotify for a full day help please?
It's just a slow blues in G, but a good example of one of his songs in this style is "Sweet Little Angel"
Did you make the animation software yourself? Subbed 😉