Up to now the bricks have used notes from the minor pentatonic scale. Brick 5 introduces the blues note — the flat 5 — which adds a whole new layer of colour and tension to your lines. Handle it right and it’s one of the most expressive sounds in all of blues guitar.
What you’ll get out of this lesson: You’ll learn what the blues note is, where it lives in the pentatonic position at the 12th fret, and how to use it as a passing tone so it adds colour without sounding out of place.
What the Blues Note Is — and Why It Needs Care
The blues note is the flat 5 of the key. It’s the note that makes the blues scale different from the minor pentatonic scale. Where we are working at the 12th fret, you’ll add in this note at the 15th fret of the G string. The full position is shown in the diagram below. The reason the blues note needs to be treated carefully is simple: it sounds terrible by itself. It’s dissonant — it needs to be treated as a passing tone, one that takes you somewhere, not one that you rest on. Of course rules can be broken, but that’s another lesson by itself.
The Lick Itself
This brick is a rundown that passes through the blues note on its way to a more stable destination. Starting at the 15th fret of the G, you slide down to the 14th fret, then pull off to the 12th. From there, you land on the 14th fret of the D string — the root note. The movement through the blues note happens quickly, and that speed is part of what makes it work: you’re touching the dissonance and immediately resolving it.
It’s a cool lick to throw in anywhere, but it works really nicely coming out of some of the other licks. Works really well with lick number one.
Tagging It Onto Other Ideas
One of the best ways to use this brick is to approach it from another note in the scale — pick any note you like, then drop into the blues note rundown. Try launching into it from the 12th fret of the B, or from the 15th fret (with a slight bend), or from the 12th fret of the high E. Each entry point gives the same lick a slightly different flavour. The slide from 15 to 14 on the G is also a great small moment of expression in its own right.
Taking it further: Once you’re comfortable with the blues note in this lick, start listening for how other players use it in their lines. Notice how it almost always resolves — either by step or by leap — to a stable pentatonic note immediately afterwards.
Your homework: Practise Brick 5 in isolation until it flows cleanly, then try connecting it to Brick 1. Can you play Brick 1 straight into Brick 5 and have it sound like a single continuous phrase? That’s your target for the week.