Blues Guitar Licks In A Minor

St. Hesitation Infirmary Blues

I've been in New England for the last week and a half, ticking off the boxes one by one: Beach day with 58 degree water, sandcastles and rock climbing? Check. Road trip through three states in under three hours? Affirmative. Mass transit through Boston without getting lost while still lacking any true understanding of how "Inbound" and "Outbound" work? So yes. I even managed to squeeze in a trip to the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge and a visit to Berklee in between drilling the family frisbee squad, chasing down respectable pizza, soaking up the occasional 65-degree weather and teaching my daughter to skip rocks in Vermont.

At this point in the email, I'd usually try and execute a tricky hairpin turn of a segue to get into this week's lesson topic, but that always takes longer than I think and I have somewhat fatigued yet restless troops patiently awaiting my return to the field to make the most of the last few hours of the day, so I'm going to go for the quick wrap-up and get to the point:

This week, we take a look at how to start putting together A minor licks over an alternating-thumb bass. These are the kinds of moves that could come in handy playing over the first few bars of a minor-key tune like "Hesitation Blues" or "St. James Infirmary."