Between the Licks

Pop-up instructional video to the left.

Whew... After a brief extended 3 or 4 month haitus, I'm back with a vengance along with two new guitar lessons! Since you're reading up on this one, you probably want to learn a little about target notes in solos. I am going to focus on the blues scale and a blues progression in the key of A, but this concept is 100% valid in any genre of music! Well, let's get started!

What are target notes?

Target notes are the notes you want to land on or include in a phrase. These target notes are usually related to the chord, they are the 3rd and 7th and are among the most popular target notes. Why, you ask? Well, the 3rd and the 7th give the chord its color! The 3rd tells you if it is major or minor and the 7th tells you if it is a dominant or major 7th chord. Remember, the root and fifth are important, but the fifth is definitely much less important than any other note of the chord. 

When it comes to the blues, this important information is often lost in the blues scale, which doesn't always contain the correct 3rd and 7th. But here's the kicker, it doesn't matter! In the blues, those differences of half a step are great for adding tension and color, but a little accent with the correct note in the correct place can take a good solo and make it a great solo! So here we go!

Target notes in a Blues Progression

Let's take an A blues progression, here are the chords: A7 as the I chord, D7 as the IV chord and E7 as the V chord. The A blues scale is commonly played over each of the chord changes and sounds pretty good. But let's take a look at the notes contained in the scale and each chord and see what the differences are.

• Blues scale: A C D Eb E G A 
• A7 chord: A C# E G
• D7 chord: D F# A C
• E7 chord: E G# B D

Look at that! The major third of each chord isn't represented in the blues scale at all! We're missing out on all that color! You may wonder how this works when the notes obviously don't line up. That would be disastrous in any other style of music! However, the blues is quite unique, it feeds off of the unique tensions created between flatted thirds and major thirds in the same way a flatted fifth is added to the blues scale.

Getting to the point

Alright, we have the theory down, now let's practice what we know. Let's start with something as simple as a few licks over the I chord, or root chord, of an A blues progression. See if you can pick out the major third (hint: they're in parenthesis!). 

Notice how you don't need to rely only on the target notes to play a solo. What you should do is simply add the target note to the basic scaffolding that is the blues scale. Imagine every note as a crayon, and the note choice is like the color choice. The basic colors (the blues scale) work great alone, but remember the silver and gold colors in the 128 pack of crayons? Those were special and those are the 3rd and 7ths. Let's do the same thing, but over the IV chord.

Notice how the lick can stay the same, but I just modified the target note to match the new chord. The great thing about target notes in a blues progression is that you only have three chords to worrry about. Imagine doing this on a jazz tune with a dozens chord, all of different qualities and extensions! Talk about an overload! Finally, let's look at the cadence, or turn around where both the V and IV chords come into play.

As you can see, the basic lick is exactly the same, but the target note just shifts again. Just memorize these three target notes and you are well on your way!

Keep on playing!

Now that you have a feel for the target note concept, play with those licks and memorize where those target note positions and apply them to some other keys. I highly recommend going to the Jam Corner and playing around with a few backing tracks. After you get done with that, head over to the forum and show off what you learned! See you in the forums!

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