Written Lessons

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The Art of the Guitar Solo

There are many different approaches to creating a guitar solo. This resource will give you an overview of the different approaches and some resources to help you on your way....

The Improvised Solo

Improvisation is the art of creating things on the spot -- in this instance a guitar solo. Creating an improvised solo is very common in Jazz and Blues music, but it is also used in Rock music as a way of simplifying a solo. When you create an improvised solo, you are playing a solo that you have never played before and will never play again. It is spontaneous. Since you have never played it before, it can be said that you couldn't have practiced that solo either.. So this brings about the difficult question -- how can you practice an improvised solo. Well, you really can't practice that exact solo. Instead what you can practice is creating solos that are similar to the ones that you want to create and will create in the future. For example, if you are trying to create a blues solo, you practice it by creating a blues solo. Most likely, your first attempt at improvising won't be perfect. But, you can learn from what you played, and try to improve this in the future. Many musicians who improvise will hear a solo or parts of a solo in their head before they play them. Learning how to get what's in your head out of your guitar is the hard part. That's where these resources come in handy showing you what to practice to improve your improvisational skill.

Scales

The first way that people usually approach improvising is by learning a scale. Once you learn the scale, you simply create a solo that uses only the notes from the scale. By using a scale that matches the key of the song you are playing (see our theory resources to learn how to do this...) you are ensuring that the notes you play will sound decent. Then, you simply need to work on the rhythms and being creative within the scale.

For Example:

If you were going to play a simple blues song called "C-Jam" Blues, which is a blues song in the key of C, you would want to learn the C - Blues Scale.

Once you have memorized the C Blues Scale, you are free to improvise using any rhythms and any of the notes from the C Blues Scale.

ITS ALL ABOUT THE RHYTHM

Often overlooked, the rhythms are what's important when improvising -- even more so than playing the right notes. After all, its your solo, who's to say what the right notes are? But the more creative you are with the rhythms of your solo, the better your soloing will become. In fact, often I encourage students to create an entire solo with just one note so they can focus on the rhythms.....

Now one of the difficult things about applying scales and learning how to solo can be figuring out what key a song is in. This is done through learning the very basics of music theory and applying them to songs that you want to play. We have a large music theory section that will help you learn how to create scales, chords, learn about key signatures, and more.....

...see SCALES from ilearnmusic—dotcom for some basic scales

Chord Tones/Arpeggios

Another resource when trying to improvise a solo is learning Chord-Tones or Arpeggios. Chord Tones are simply that -- the notes (or tones) of a Chord. An arpeggio is simply a chord played as individual notes -- all the chord tones.

By playing only the notes in a given chord, you are again assuring that whatever you play for a note will harmonize with the chord and sound decent. Now, an advantage to learning chord tones is that often the chords to a song are written right above the song. So soloing with chord tones can be relatively easy. However, in many jazz songs, etc., the harmony (the chords) change frequently, which can make it difficult to follow the changes in chords. Also, by keeping only to chord tones sometimes a solo can be limited in its creative choices. For example, if a song stays on one chord for a long time, you are limited in the number of notes you can use, whereas if you used a scale you would have more creative options.

....see Chords/Triads from ilearnmusic—dotcom to learn the theory of Chords, or Chords to learn how to play some basic chords on the guitar

Modes (coming soon)

Other Tones/Techniques (neighbor tones, etc.)

There are many other techniques that thing that those who improvise utilize.

One of these is using neighbor notes. A neighbor note is simply that, a note that is next-to (or next-door) to a particular note. Often times soloists will add chromatic neighbor notes to chords to add tension and interest. A chromatic neighbor is simply a neighbor note that is one half step away from the note.

Sequencing is another technique that soloists utilize. Sequencing refers to playing something "something" (often a small phrase) and then transposing it up and playing it again. Sometimes things are sequenced by half step, sometimes by whole step.

....Check out Theory 101 from ilearnmusic—dotcom for everything you want to know about music theory. Its free!!

Playing Pre-Written Leads

There exists yet another type of soloing out there, and it is the performance of pre-written solos. Usually, this will relate to people who are performing other people's songs and want to perform the solo from their song exactly as it was on the CD or record. However, it could also relate to people who have trouble improvising (or simply prefer not too) and have composed their own solos to their own songs. The advantages of this are that you can take the best of what you may have improvised and boil it down into the best solo you can come up with. The down side is that you will likely be stuck playing the same solo for the rest of your life.....

However, when people perform music live, it is often expected that if a song has a particularly memorable solo that it be performed as it was written, rather than trying to improvise something else in its place.

If you are interested in getting learning to solo, check out some of our resources here at ilearmusic--dotcom.

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....Back to Guitar 101 (Guitar Made Easy) from ilearnmusic—dotcom where you will find a variety of guitar lessons and resources.