Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood Pt.3 - Guitar Solo - Guitar Lesson

About Texas Flood Pt.3 - Guitar Solo

The third guitar solo section of "Texas Flood" is where Stevie Ray Vaughan really digs into his most expressive playing, and it is the kind of passage that rewards slow, deliberate practice before you attempt it at full tempo. The solo lives in G minor and leans hard on blues phrasing: wide, vocal string bends, heavy vibrato, and rhythmic call-and-response phrases that need to breathe. Vaughan played in Eb Standard tuning, which drops every string a half step and gives his bends a slightly looser, more elastic feel that you want to replicate if you are going for his tone. At 95 BPM the tempo is not fast, but accurate timing behind the beat is what separates a convincing performance from one that feels rushed. Pick out the trickiest bend-and-release phrases and use the Practice Toolbar to loop them slowed down until the pitch and vibrato are solid. In Blues Rock phrasing like this, control of the left hand is everything: speed means nothing if the bends are not hitting the right pitches.

• Vaughan used Eb Standard tuning across the whole recording, so tune every string down a half step to match his pitch and string tension.
• The solo relies on wide, slow string bends in G minor pentatonic, where accurate pitch at the top of each bend is the main technical challenge.
• Practise the vibrato passages looped at reduced speed using the Practice Toolbar, as Vaughan's vibrato is wide and even, not a nervous flutter.