![How Playing in a Trio Expands Your Soloing Techniques]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/How-Playing-in-a-Trio-Expands-Your-Soloing-Techniques-758x406.jpg "How Playing in a Trio Expands Your Soloing Techniques] 1")
My favourite ensemble to play in is the power trio. With only three instruments – electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit – there’s so much freedom to explore concepts like space, time and dynamic range.
There is something really special that can happen when three musicians are playing off of each other and interacting in real time.
During these sections, the bass player is pedaling on an A note; because there is no minor or major 3rd provided by another chord instrument, I’m free to move between major and minor phrases at my discretion.
Oftentimes, I’ll start out with a motive that alludes to an A7 sound, as in Figure 1. The initial lick is based on the A minor pentatonic scale (A, C, D, E, G), and in bar 2 I repeatedly slide into a two-note A7 voicing.
Once that’s established, I can develop the phrases a little more, as in Figure 2, where I hammer-on from the minor 3rd, C, to the major 3rd, C#.
Laying this A dominant 7 groundwork allows me to move to ideas based on the A Mixolydian mode (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G), like the phrase shown in Figure 3.
I’ll then elaborate a bit more in this direction with lines like those in Figure 4, taking advantage of the sweet sound of the major 3rd.
What’s really cool is when you then bring in some different harmony, moving from A7 to Am7, as demonstrated in Figure 5. I might play four bars over A7 then change my whole mindset to focus back on the minor 3rd and the sound of Am7.
Figure 6 begins with four bars that revolve around an A7 sound, with the major third, C#, accentuated in the phrases. I then switch at bar 5 to lines that target the minor 3rd, C, by moving into licks based on A minor pentatonic (A, C, D, E, G), played in a bluesy Eric Clapton/Leslie West/Mick Taylor style.
Harmonically, I have the complete freedom to explore wherever I’d like to go. As is standard practice in blues-influenced music, I like to move back and forth between parallel major and minor licks, as these two sounds complement each other so well.
