Common Licks & the Blues Scale
A great solo is not random — it is a handful of licks, strung together and repeated with feeling. Every one of them lives in the box you already know. Add one "blue note" and you have the blues scale. Here are the licks you will hear in a thousand solos, all in A at the 5th fret.
Concepts
Licks are vocabulary. Learn a few cold, then mix and reorder them — that is improvising.
The blue note (♭5) is a passing note: slide through it, do not land on it.
Phrasing is space. Leave gaps between licks — call, then response, like a conversation.
Graduation
String two licks together over a 12-bar blues in A, leaving space between them.