Now I have a lesson for you all about how to take a great guitar solo.

I’m teaching a blues scale with an electric guitar, but you can use this tutorial for ANY kind of music and with any kind of guitar. Just switch the scale you use… and switch the guitar. Enjoy!

Here is the ‘A minor blues scale’ pattern I am playing:

e______________________________5_8_______________ (thinnest string)
B__________________________5_8___________________
G___________________5_7_8________________________
D______________5_8_______________________________
A_______5_6_7____________________________________
E__5_8___________________________________________ (thickest string)

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 here.

No fluff, 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 afinger 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. There are tab lessons in the first download package I sent you… here is the download link to that again:

Guitar Learning Package

Now that we got that out of the way…let’€™s learn!

I have some jam tracks for you to solo over to download:

Jam Tracks Download

Click above to download them, and read the lesson below to take your first step into being creative with your guitar and taking some awesome solos.

You will really surprise yourself when you first start to get this, I know I did. So I strongly encourage you read the lesson below!

——————————

So here is the challenge – to help train your fingers and your ears.

First to pick a scale to play along with the music. Click below to search in google images for a scale map. This link searches for the “minor pentatonic scale”, a scale commonly used in rock solos. This means that the solos would consist of these notes, which all sound good together. The key of this minor pentatonic scale is A minor.

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&q=A+minor+pentatonic+scale

You can also search for ‘pentatonic scale’ or ‘minor pentatonic scale’ to get other scales.

First make sure your guitar is in standard tuning (EADGBe from thickest string to lightest). NOTE: You can search for eg. ‘A# minor pentatonic scale’ to get a scale map in a specific key.

Notes played within a given scale give the music a certain ‘feel’… for example, if you play a pentatonic blues scale (look it up, and play along with the ‘Bluesy Day’ song) it distinctly sounds like a very bluesy collection of notes, even to untrained ears. You can use this link to search for a “blues scale”.

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&q=blues+scale+fretboard

Here is a map of one of the positions in this AMAZING pattern again:

______________________________5_8_______________
__________________________5_8___________________
___________________5_7_8________________________
______________5_8_______________________________
_______5_6_7____________________________________
__5_8___________________________________________

A minor blues pentatonic scale Position 1.

Practice going up and down the scale with these notes to develop your dexterity!

After you have played some of these notes without the music and take note of how they sound, try and play it with background music. If it doesn’t sound right (almost out of tune), chances are the music is in a different KEY than the scale you’re playing is. All you have to do to change the key of the scale is move the scale PATTERN up and down the fretboard. Cool huh!

The scale pattern you have searched for should show you the ROOT NOTE of the scale in several different positions. The root note tells you what key the scale is being played in.

So if you are playing a ‘minor pentatonic scale’ and the root note position is on the A note (5th fret in standard tuning on the E string), you are playing an A minor pentatonic scale. If you move it up one fret, you are now playing in the A# (A sharp) minor pentatonic scale!

Just move the pattern up and down and keep playing notes till the notes you’re playing sound like they are in the same key as the song! Be patient and you’ll get it, and over time you’ll be able to get into key really quickly.

Once you do this try to play around with it and be creative. Use hammer-ons and pull-off, bend the strings (remember, bending a string gives a higher note, so make sure that that note is also in the scale or it might not sound right!) and try to have fun with it.

The song Bluesy Day can be played with an A minor blues pentatonic scale (search ‘A minor blues scale’ – it is like an A minor pentatonic scale with the D#/Eb note added)) and it sounds pretty good! Give it a shot.

You’ll get it soon enough! Work on your dexterity and try to play chords within the scale (more than 1 note at a time) while playing and mix it up. Scales are the basis of soloing, and all music really, so commit all kinds of em to memory!

You can also search for more backing tracks that people make at home in places like youtube. You can find backing tracks to ANY type of music there.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to get back to you! Hope this was helpful for you.

Have a good jam!
-Steve

How To Take A Rockin’ Guitar Solo is a post from: Beginners Guitar Lessons