How to play guitar like Jimmie Vaughan

An audio lesson with tab on Stevie's brother and inspiration

Guitar Techniques/Guitar-X (John Wheatcroft), Wed 14 Oct 2009, 3:32 pm UTC

Chord Shapes

Before we delve into our first solo, it would be a really good idea to get acquainted with the following moveable 9th chord voicings:

(Click chord boxes to enlarge)

Example 1, solo 1: up-tempo 9th chord blues

(Click tab to enlarge)

[Bars 1-4] The concept at work in our first Vaughan-inspired study is to punctuate each C minor pentatonic phrase (C Eb F G Bb) with a harmonically appropriate C9 chord voicing. This is surprisingly difficult to do, especially at this tempo, so make sure you kick things off at a manageable pace and turn up the heat as your accuracy and coordinating comes together.

[Bars 5-8] Continuing along similar lines, here our harmonic sequence shifts to the expected IV chord (F9) before returning to the I in bar 7. We add the b5 into the single-note mix to create what is commonly known as the 'blues scale' (R b3 4 b5 5 b7) although this is far from the only melodic device used within the blues idiom. What we do get with these notes, however, is all the fun of pentatonic with a sense of extra dissonance, tension and bluesy grit so you should definitely familiarise yourself with this set of melodic intervals.

[Bars 9-12] More 'blues scale' action here in bars 9-10, along with a shift to a more chord-tone based soloing approach in the final two measures. It's important to watch how Vaughan 'boxes-in' the strongest notes of our underlying C7 tonic chord (C E G Bb), albeit in single-note form – a simple but highly effective improvisational device in many forms of music and not just blues phrasing.