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In this free guitar tutorial, Berklee College of Music professor and Berklee Online course author Michael Williams shows you how to play a blues guitar solo using call and response.
About Michael Williams
Michael Williams has been active as a blues and jazz guitarist around New England since 1987. He has performed extensively throughout the United States and Canada as a member of Grammy winner James Cotton’s blues band, and with many other artists, including David “Fathead” Newman, Mighty Sam McClain, the Bruce Katz Band, Sugar Ray Norcia, Darrell Nulisch, Toni Lynn Washington, Michelle Willson, Jerry Portnoy, the Love Dogs, blues piano virtuoso David Maxwell, and his own band, Michael Williams and Friends.
Williams performed on James Cotton’s CD, 35th Anniversary Jam, which won a W.C. Handy Award and received a Grammy nomination for the Best Traditional Blues Album in 2003. He performed on Bruce Katz’s 2004 release, entitled A Deeper Blue, and his playing, songwriting, and arranging are featured on Michelle Willson’s CD So Emotional, which earned a four-star review in Down Beat magazine. In 1999 Williams released a CD, entitled Late Night Walk (Blue Tempo Records), which features ten original compositions with guest artists David “Fathead” Newman on tenor sax, Sugar Ray Norcia on vocals, and Bruce Katz on Hammond B3 organ and piano.
Originally from Northern California, he has written jingles for radio and television, and performed on extended tours throughout Europe with jazz and theater groups.
Williams is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he has taught since 1987. He specializes in teaching a mix of blues and jazz styles, and has traveled to Europe and South America on several occasions as a clinician and performer for the college.
About Berklee’s online blues guitar course
Guitarists who know the blues have a natural advantage over those that don’t. No matter what style they chose to play – jazz, rock, classical – having a blues background provides guitarists with a foundation in form, control, feel and harmonies that can be used to advance their playing in any genre of music. Blues Guitar Workshop begins by teaching the 12-bar blues harmony, basic rhythm guitar technique, and the pentatonic and blues scale in the open position up the neck. You’ll learn to incorporate some of the nuances of the masters into your playing – from doubling the bass over a shuffle in the style of Buddy Guy, to combining major and minor pentatonic scales in the style of B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. Through call and response exercises and playing in other grooves and tempos, you’ll learn to pace your solos to create tension and release – a technique mastered by all the greatest guitarists. You’ll learn to reuse the concepts and musical elements to expand your musical foundation and enhance your ability, whether you’re trying to bring a blues sound to your playing or adding more depth and feel to any other style.
