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How to Take a Rockin' Guitar Solo! Guitar
Theory – Guitar Soloing What is a Guitar Solo? A
guitar solo is when the ‘lead’ guitar player improvises a melody (on the spot)
over the rhythm section of a band. (Carlos
Santana, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Hendrix, etc.) Yup,
the lead guitarist makes it up as they play it! You
are probably thinking to yourself…Hmmm, will I ever be able to do that?
Make up a solo on the spot?! The
answer is YES, you can. There
are ‘tricks of the trade’ for guitar soloing just as there are for any
specialty or profession. I
am going to guide you right to the point, just like all of my reports. No
fulff, No BS. We’ll discuss ONLY what you need to know to take a freakin’ guitar
solo! Hopefully
You have a good idea about how to hold a guitar and play a note. You do not
have to know what note you are playing! (ex. A, C, G, etc) All
you have to know, is how to play a note. That is pressing a finger down
on a fret and strumming or picking the strings with the other hand. Also,
you will need to know how to read Guitar TAB. I tought TAB in my first guitar
lesson report. There are resources online that show you how to read TAB for
FREE! Just search: ‘Guitar TAB’ on your favorite search engine. Now
that we got that out of the way…let’s learn! Who Plays a Guitar Solo and Where does it Fit in? As
I mentioned above, the ‘lead guitar’ player of a band/group is the one
who will take a guitar solo. (Duh, of course, a keyboard solo would be taken by
the keyboardist!) A
typical song usually consists of a ‘Chord Progression’ and a ‘Melody. The
‘Chord Progression’ is the combination of chords that is played in the
background over the melody. The melody usually consists of notes that are part
of the chord being played at any given time. So if the chords for a song are G,
C, D. (which MANY famous songs are just 3 chords! More than you can
imagine..) The
melody of the song would probably include one of the notes of a G chord while
the band plays that chord. When the band switches to a C chord, the singer or
whatever is playing the main melody swtiches to a note that sounds good with
the C chord and so on. That is how a song is constructed which is a whole
different lesson! During
a song, sometimes an instrument will take a solo. This
occurs in classical music as well as rock ‘n roll and a lot of styles in
between! Jazz is very big on soloing and improvisation. The
melody line will stop, but the rest of the rhythm section of the band will
continue to play the ‘chords’ of the ‘background music’ while the lead
guitarist takes a nice solo over the music. That doesn’t mean that they play
the same melody that the singer was just singing! It’s more about showing what
the instrument is capable of, and making musical ‘phrases’. So
the guitarist solos and then the singer usually comes back in for a final
chorus and then the song ends. What I am going to do, is narrow down the notes
for you, so you know what you need to play to take a great sounding solo. Let’s Get to the ‘Tricks of the Trade’ and Solos Already!! Ok,
Ok! Phew. I didn’t realize you were that anxious. Calm
down, and grab your guitar. ;-) Ok,
what I’m about to tell you will change the way you feel about guitar solos and
how difficult they are. It
obviously repeats itself in higher pitched octaves therefore you can go up and
down the guitar neck and take a crazy solo….but it’s still only 6 notes. WOW.
That’s a heavy load for a lot of people who dream of taking guitar solos. Why?
Because it’s not as hard as you think. Only 6 notes. The pattern I will
show you will make it even easier! Here is the Guitar TAB
for this AMAZING pattern! ______________________________36________________ __________________________36____________________ ___________________3_5_6________________________ ______________3_5_______________________________ _______3_4_5____________________________________ __3_6___________________________________________ That is going ‘UP’ the
scale. Here is going ‘DOWN’
the scale: __6_3___________________________________________ ______6_3_______________________________________ __________6_5_3_________________________________ ________________5_3_____________________________ ____________________5_4_3_______________________ ___________________________6_3__________________ You
might notice this already, but even JUST playing this scale sounds like a
guitar solo!!! ANOTHER
TRICK OF THE TRADE: I
call this the ‘Universal Pattern’ Law. Anything
you do in one spot on the guitar, can be done the same way on any other spot on
the guitar! Sound weird? It is. For example, the first few notes of this scale:
_______3_4_5_ __3_6________ (LOW
String) By
starting on the 3rd fret we are soloing in the key of G. If
we wanted to solo in the key of A we would have to start on the 5th
fret of the lowest string: _______5_6_7_ __5_8________ (LOW
String) The
pattern looks AND feels the same as when we did it starting on the 3rd
fret. You can get the pattern down perfectly the way I showed you starting on
the 3rd fret, and then try to do the same solo on any other fret on
the bottom string. You can slide your hand just one fret to the right and start
on the 4th fret: _______4_5_6_ __4_7________ (LOW
String) You
will see what I mean as soon as you play all of these examples. That
is GREAT NEWS!!! I
just basically told you that you can take a guitar solo using the 6 note
pattern (done 2 and a half times thus the 14 total notes) that I showed you. AND
you don’t have to learn how to solo in every key!!! Just memorize the pattern
and you’ll automatically be able to play it in ANY KEY! Whoa. That’s
great news if you ask me. Taking it Further Once you have mastered
the above scale, check out theorylessons.com to learn more about different
positions of the blues and pentatonic scales. It should be noted, that many
guitarists get a lot of mileage out of the single position above, so experiment
with creating guitar solos before you memorize a whole bunch of scale
positions. Now, you're ready to
improvise. The concept is simple; string together series of notes from the
scale that sound pleasing together (these series of notes are often referred to
as "licks"). When you’re done experimenting a little, look up videos
of your favorite guitar players and solos.
Listen to the Licks they play and try memorizing, and utilizing some of
these in your guitar solos. Using the Scale to Play Guitar Solos! Now
that you're comfortable with the blues scale, you'll want to play guitar solos
over some form of accompaniment. The most common things guitar players solo
over is a 12 bar blues. Something that
beginner lead guitarists don't realize is that improvising ( or,
"soloing") does not involve playing a series of random notes, and
then they magically sound great together. Rather, guitarists draw their guitar
solos from a scale, using it as a template to improvise with. The Blues Scale,
despite it's name, is a scale which is used extensively in all styles of guitar
solos. To
use the blues scale, play it so that the root of the scale starts on the letter
name of the scale you want to play. For example, to play a G blues scale, find
the note G on the LOW string (3rd fret) and start the scale there.
(this is the one we learned!) An ‘A’ blues scale would start on the 5th
fret of the LOW string. Try
playing the scale up and down at first. Start off slow, then get faster and
faster. Try messing around with different phrases and patterns (all within the
same notes of the scale though). You will hear and see how powerful this is
after you play it for the first time! Congratulations!
You took the 1st step in learning how to take rockin’ guitar
solos!!! This is Part 1 of a 3 part lesson, practice what you’ve learned here,
look up some TAB for sweet guitar solos online and start rockin! Then, when you
feel like you’re ready, jump into part 2! PART 2 Will Include: 1)
Hot Licks, Riffs, and more… 2)
More (different) scales that are used for soloing! 3)
Let’s take a solo 4) Thank
you for reading, I wish you all the best success! |
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