basic tips on how to improve solos

[clare_bear2]

By semi-interested demand.... :lol:

Any tips for beginners/improvers on how to structure solos?

Maybe posting favorite riffs/licks? (I'll try to find some of my notes that Rocktron wrote about pentatonic riffs and post some)

How do you make your licks sound interesting - emphasis on certain notes etc (i.e. playing them harder) so that the notes are not just played all the same (does that make sense?)

I know 'tone is in the fingers' but how you pick notes must make a difference too - tips?

Favourite scales for particular styles? Short 3 note licks, or longer pasages of notes?

And pretty much anything else that'll help those of us who are beginning to enter the world of solos to improve.

Thanks very much.

[imported_flip]

Great topic - I want to know, too!

At the moment, my idea of pulling off a show-stopping solo is letting someone else do it

[Limbo]

...and me ! I find that left to my own devices when just noodling, I keep coming up with the same patterns - just on different frets !

[Roland.Gower]

This topic will keep us going through Christmas! Already two questions have been asked: structure and note choice.

My general rules are:
- start with a variation of the melody (if there is one), working out which notes to target, and embellish it increasingly as you play.
- begin your solo low and slow, picking up the pace and moving up the neck as the solo proceeds
- leave the music space to breathe by holding notes, or leaving gaps, at the ends of phrases

As for note choice: play the notes that are in the underlying chord sequence, and work out which 'incidental' notes sound best in the gaps

[Limbo]

Something I try sometimes is repeating a basic pattern but put emphasis on different notes each time round, making a sort of 'counter rhythm' to the song if possible. I wish I knew more patterns though.. but I suppose the only way to do that is to put the mouse down and pick up the guitar and a book ! (..but I'm too lazy !) :lol:

[Wibbly Pig]

...and me ! I find that left to my own devices when just noodling, I keep coming up with the same patterns - just on different frets !

Big +1

:cry:

[Vai n maiden]

Reinforce your rhythm and accents by mixing up your picking with your hammer-ons/pulloffs etc. e.g. sometimes pick the lot, sometimes pick on the way up and legato on the way down etc.

[jason morris1]

I could go off of a big ramble, but I'll just say buy Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar books as he'll say it all more eloquently.

Little tips off the toppa my head, though:

Learn to phrase, 3 well phrased notes speak volumes more than 20 soulless ones. Bending, vibrato, muting and semi harmonics and dynamic picking is where it's at. (+ the stuff VnM said)

Sing what you play, you should never play anything that you don't feel.

Plagarism is good: no-one's been succesfully taken to the cleaners for nicking solo licks and phrases.

Listen to the backing, react to it. Too many beginner & intermediate players forget the backing and wail away in their own world. Wrong! Again, 3 notes that follow the backing are better than 100 that ignore it.

Oh, and know what your aim is as a soloist, no point learning complex changes if your heroes are Slash & Eric Clapton (well, yet :wink: ). Although I'd stick my neck out and say good bending and vibrato is essential for all guitarists.

Mostly, get Creative Guitar 1 and treat it is your new bible, tough.

[imported_thomasross20]

TBH, I never got much from the Creative guitar books.. probably because I did the stuff already :lol: But they are good, so check them out. I have number 2 for sale if anybody wants to pm me.
Soloing... I'll write a huuuge reply at some other point...

[jason morris1]

TBH, I never got much from the Creative guitar books.. probably because I did the stuff already :lol: But they are good, so check them out.

Exactamundo. Book 1 is the stuff that I already knew (and much of book 2), but really well put, and ideal for an intermediate player to get up to scratch & plug up knowledge holes.