Introduction
Welcome to this weeks Tasty Blues lesson, An introduction to the playing style of British blues guitarist, Matt Schofield.
Matt Schofield (born 21st, August 1977, Manchester) first began playing guitar at the age of 12. Schofield developed his love of the blues when his dad before relocating to America gave him a B.B. King video. Matt would watch this video before school every day firmly confirming his love affair of the blues. Schofield would go on teach himself by working his way through his Dad’s blues record collection learning from the masters. At age 18 he left the countryside and moved to London. In London Schofield would begin his career as a sideman, honing his skills backing a variety of experienced and well known artists of the British Blues scene as well as visiting American artists. At the age 25 Schofield embarked his solo career mixing classic Jazz, funk, soul and rock with his blues roots. After five studio albums and a solid 10 years of touring with his own band Schofield has firmly established himself as a major player gaining critical acclaim for his album releases.
Rhythm Track
Matt Schofield’s guitar style combines traditional blues vocabulary along with the elements of Jazz harmony. For this lesson I have put together a short a 8 bar solo Demonstrating some of these approaches. The backing track is comprised of an 8 bar chord progression and is based around the tonality of the Bb Dorian mode as shown in Ex.1
Solo Section
The solo begins with a series of licks based from positions 1 and 2 of the Bb blues scale as shown below.
In bar 4 we have a line that is derived from an F dominant 7 arpeggiobefore resolving back in the Bb blues scales in bars 5 and 6. The use of arpeggios when soloing is not only a great way of spelling out the chord changes but it can also give your improvisations a composed quality.
In bar 7 the use of arpeggios are taken a step further by superimposing an E diminished seventh arpeggio over the Eb9 chord, implying the sound of Eb7b9 before concluding the solo with a series of phrases based out of the 2nd shape of the Bb blues scale targeting the b5 interval (Fb).
Superimposing a diminished 7th arpeggio a semitone higher than the root of the dominant chord can be found in the style of many great blues fusion guitarists such as Larry Carlton and Robben Ford.
I have included a the solo transcription below. Once you have the phrases under fingers work on integrating them into your playing and create your own variations.
I have included an extended backing track below, enjoy!