The descending answer
A box 1 descending run that answers a call and lands on the root — the most useful blues lick there is.
- Style
- blues
- Written in
- A
- Feel
- shuffle
- Tempo
- ♩=88
- Length
- 1 bar
Numbers are the order you play them, so notes sharing a number sound together. Drop the tempo until it is clean, then bring it back up.
Written in A, and the writing below describes it there. Move it to another key and the shape does not change, only where its root sits — which is the difference between knowing a lick and knowing a fret number.
- 1C · string 1, fret 8
- 2A · string 1, fret 5
- 3G · string 2, fret 8
- 4E · string 2, fret 5
- 5D · string 3, fret 7
- 6C · string 3, fret 5
- 7A · string 4, fret 7vibrato
If you learn one phrase, learn this one. It falls straight down box 1 from the top string to the root on the D string, and because it ends on an A it resolves every time the I chord is underneath.
It is the classic answer half of call and response. Play something short and questioning, leave a bar of silence, then drop this in. The whole shape of a blues chorus can be built from a call you improvise and this arriving underneath it.
Where this fits
This comes out of week 3 of the blues path — saying it (phrasing, space and legato). The week is where you learn the device; this page is where you come back to it once the week has rolled over.