“The thought process is, which notes should sting, which notes should moan, and how can I effectively express emotion”: From B.B. King to Eric Clapton and Otis Rush, the blues is the core element of Joe Bonamassa's playing

2.75 minutes of Joe Bonamassa playing smoking blues on a vintage Les Paul - YouTube

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The foundation of virtually every genre of modern, guitar-driven music is the blues. I’m known as a blues-rock player, and even within the rockier side of my music, I always start and end with the blues.

For example, if I’m playing in the key of F, I will very often rely on melodic single-line figures that originate from my love of and time spent listening to single-note blues guitar improvisation.

Figure 1 illustrates five bars of improvised soloing that are very vocal-like. I begin in the 6th-position “B.B. box,” which positions the index finger on the F root note on the B string’s 6th fret. The surrounding notes – D, G, Ab, Bb, and C – make reference to both the F major pentatonic (F, G, A, C, D) and F minor pentatonic scales (F, Ab, Bb, C, Eb).

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Bars 2 and 3 shift up the board to focus more on F minor pentatonic, but at the end of bar 3 into bar 4, I move from F major pentatonic back into F minor pentatonic. Switching between these two scales is a staple of blues guitar that I learned from listening to all of my heroes: B.B. King, Otis Rush, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and many others.

With that familiar ground firmly established, it feels like a natural transition to broaden the harmony into other modes. In Figure 2, I add the notes Gb and Db to F minor pentatonic while substituting the major 3rd, A, for the minor 3rd, Ab.

The result is the F Phrygian-dominant mode (F, Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, Eb), which is the fifth mode of the Bb harmonic minor scale (Bb, C, Db, Eb, F, Gb, A), made up of the same seven notes. In bar 3, I move back into blues territory with a phrase based on F minor pentatonic.

I’ll begin most solos with lines rooted in the blues, even if it’s not a blues song. I learned that from Eric Clapton; I saw an interview where he said, “I always start with the blues.” You will certainly hear great examples of this in his recordings with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and Cream.

To my mind, it’s not just about the scales; it’s about the phrasing and how tactile you are in your articulation and execution. The thought process is, which notes should sting, which notes should moan, and how can I effectively express emotion.

Figure 3 picks up at the fourth bar of an improvised phrase, kicking off with an F major triad (F, A, C). This is a good example of how a triad can function as a “stepping stone” when moving from one phrase or area of the neck to another.

In bar 5 and into bar 6 of the figure, I lean a bit heavier into the gas pedal with fast phrases inspired by another one of my big influences, Eric Johnson.

I’ve found it very useful to have built a foundation in the blues, which helps me to move into broader musical territory. Next month, we’ll explore this further.

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• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.