Improve soloing?

Hello fellow guitarists.

I know this kinda thing can take a lifetime, but i want to ask anyway, how do you improve your soloing, and not just a little... I wonna be able to say that ''I can make a solo'', and a good one to say the least!?

I been sitting alot lately with my metronome doing 3 notes per string runs and hammer on pull off drills, and all of that stuff. But the thing is, technically im improving. I know that! But i have a hard time integrating (sorry for my spelling) the new consepts and runs and small tricks and scales and whatever, into the solos i am capable of doing now. when i try do them in my solos, i completely stops after the first new little detail i am not used to, like i can't get both my fingers and my head to improvise any more :confused: . And the ''new'' stuff that i try to put in, does not even seem to fit in soundwise, even though it's notes in the scale? Im so used to the pentatonic and the blues scale that i can hardly solo in other scales. And i have a hard time moving from places to places on the fretboard, can this be fixed?

This will prolly take some years? I quess its' a matter of experience?
Am i wrong? Been playing for a little more than 1 year, (but please don't think that im just a rookie, iv not been doing much else than play this last year!)

Originally Posted by: caponi14...i completely stops after the first new little detail i am not used to, like i can't get both my fingers and my head to improvise any more :confused: . [/QUOTE]

I get that, too. For me, I need to practice that transition into the new part, not the individual parts. For example: Even just moving from a hammer on/pull off on the 1st e string to a HO/PO on the B right in a row is something I had to practice. It was easy to do the move on either string, but one after the other was hard. It's all finger memory, whether it's something simple like that, or somethign more difficult. If you need to take time to think, you are lost! (IMO anyway :) )

Originally Posted by: caponi14
And the ''new'' stuff that i try to put in, does not even seem to fit in soundwise, even though it's notes in the scale? Im so used to the pentatonic and the blues scale that i can hardly solo in other scales.

LOL I get that, too! I practiced basic pentatonics for so long that when I finally started adding some flat 5th for some basic blues-iness it sounded all wrong! But after a bit, my ears got used to it. Anytime I add something new, it can souond weird until I get used to it. If you play some of those less common scales (mixolydian, etc) they can sound pretty messed up, but they are valid. I think it's just a lot of getting used to a new sound after practicing a single sound for so long.

[QUOTE=caponi14]
And i have a hard time moving from places to places on the fretboard, can this be fixed?

When you practice your pentatonics, are you staying in one position? If so, you should try moving from one box to the next, up and down, using different strings (you know, mix it up). These link me all over the place, anywhere I want to go. :) Throw in some hammer on's & pull off's along the way and your pulling wicked solos just getting from one place to another!

Thanks Raz! Your the man. im the kinda person who needs encuragement (sorry for the spelling again)

I think im way to hard on myself, as always lol... And i have a tendensy to look on the bad things instead of the good... I will prolly get it one day or another, i feel im kinda moving in the right direction, i just need to crack the code!

But thanks alot :)

Im pretty much in the same boat as you - I know scales but they don't sound as good as other players, but i think its important to start analizing other players solos and see how they use them to understand the why it works. Which is what I have been doing lately. For example, you probably can already play the well known Em Pentatonic scale at the 12th fret, but take the intro to Guns and Roses Sweet Child O'Mine - All it is is the Em Pentatonic. Probably a bit different than you would think to play it.

I think its important to analyze the works of other guitar greats to develop your own sound.

Hey everyone,
I've been reading this thread, and IMO most great guitar players don't play solos using scales. They play around a scale of course, and they may also play some parts of it. Great solos are made up of riffs, and licks using a scale, or some of the notes from it. I do play out of the pentatonic scale, but very seldom do I play the scale itself. I know it, but I add hammer ons, pull offs, and a bend or two to make it interesting. I may do some slides too, or maybe play a triplet, or a double stop.

Maybe you have practiced the scale enough, try doing the same thing in a different way using some of the techniques I mentioned. Instead of 3 notes only hit 2 on the top 4 strings, and then a whole step bend on the 3rd string or something.

I'm assuming you guys are referring to rock, and I've played my share of that too. I still play some AC/DC, Skynyrd, Kansas, Bad Company, Van Halen, or Stevie Ray, and many others whenever it's requested. I know the signatures to these songs, but I don't always play them. I might play the sigs the first time around, and then throw in my licks. My suggestion to you, is to add to, or take away from the scales you practice when you think about solos. Open strings are also a great way to get around the fretboard, and also playing out of chord positions.

If you really want to improvise your own solos, you need to learn more riffs, and licks. Knowing scales is important, because that lets you know which notes will work, and where to put them. However when you practice your scales, don't be afraid to embellish them some with more than just speed. You will end up in the same place, but there's more than 1 way to get there. More playing techniques, and a few licks can go a long way when improvising a solo. Best of luck to you, and I hope you'll give it a try.

Ofcourse i will try it out when you wise people tell me to! Thanks alot, Really

Originally Posted by: caponi14Ofcourse i will try it out when you wise people tell me to! Thanks alot, Really

I recently redid all my blues licks tutorials in HD. There are lots of great ideas in these lessons you can add to your collection of licks to expand your soloing options:

Major Notes In Minor Pentatonic Series 1
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=217

Major Notes In Minor Pentatonic Series 2
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=232

Major Notes In Minor Pentatonic Series 3
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=826

Major Notes In Minor Pentatonic Series 4
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=244

Have fun!

For me, what worked wonders was learning solos.

Yes, learning other people's solos.

It's like with scales and riffs and licks you have learned a pile of words in language. Maybe some grammar. But you have no practice putting them together into sentences, expressing yourself. Kids copy their parents learning language. You copy your heros learning to solo.

Doing this for a while, I found that suddenly I was having phrases and expressions "under my fingers" that "just work" when I need them to. I'm still at the beginning of the road, but this was a breakthrough for me.

As a concrete example of how I made it work, a solo I love is Comfortably Numb (the outro). This is a challenging thing to learn (for me) just technically. So that took a while. Once I had that, I then looked for variants of it ... live versions. I learned those. Then I looped a backing track of that chord progression and started mixing up the phrases from the various versions. Suddenly it unlocked... I started being able to mix it up and do my own thing.

There is another important skill that learning someone elses solo gives you. It is the skill of hearing something ... in your head ... and being able to put it onto the guitar.

At first you are doing this with other people's notes. You listen to a fragment of the solo and find where it is on the fretboard. At first that is hard and slow and tedious. But with practice you get faster and faster at this, learning other people's solos.

Suddenly you reach a point where you can hear *in your head* a *new* phrase that you think would go well and you can quickly find it on the keyboard. Absolutely essential skill, this is a way to get it.

HTH.

GaJ

--

Guitar Lesson Guide

yes, i really really want to be able to learn the art of listening to a solo and practice it without all the tabs and stuff... I wonna get past that stage, but i have big difficulty (sorry for the spelling) doing that. Is there a good way to start out learning that?

Im a big fan of Slash and i would like my playing to go in the direction of his playing style, i quess he aint the easy'est to immitate?

Is the problem hearing what the notes are, or playing them even if you know what they are?

For hearing what the notes are, get "Transcribe!", a program that slows down music. It is worth it. I use it every day, pretty well (you can loop sections etc etc with it). There are others, but it's the best I've tried.

If you can't hear what the notes are, even with it slowed down, then try a simpler piece of music. Simpler means either just slower (IE the original solo doesn't have so much fast stuff sluring/bluring into itself) or music with less going on at the same time. Solos with one note at a time and not much other music around are obviously easier to hear.

Also, you will start off having to do it one note at a time, but you won't always be able to listen to just that one note. What I mean is in say a three note run, it's really hard to start and stop the playback over just the middle note, and even if you can, your ear doens't have time to "tune in" before it's all over.

So select a short phrase to play back, but deliberately listen to just one of the notes. As it goes past, sing it out loud. "la la". Then find it on your guitar. Then move on to the next. Sounds laborious, but it's the training you are looking for, and it quickly gets easier.

If you are having trouble playing it, when you know what it is, the first most most most important thing is play it slower. NEVER EVER practice it fast and wrongly, because you just learn the mistake. Instead, play the phrase at the speed you can... even one note per second or slower, till your fingers start to know where the notes are.

Also, if you are having trouble with technique, then practice excercises for technique...

HTH

GaJ

Oh, for Slash, the first little solo in sweet child of mine should be perfect.

Nice slow clear notes.

The first section of the second solo is also very doable.

If you can play the second part of that solo you're fricking awesome already, what are you doing in this place!? ;)

GaJ

I also use a computer program to slow the song down and it works great
I use a Mac and the program for that is called " I Reherse". My hearing isn't what it used to be so anything that helps me digest what the guitarist is playing is aces in my book!

Hello again, iv been following your advises and im in progress learning solos from some of my favorite songs, and i feel im doing progress with my playing. But i still have some questions?

If i want to do a fast part in a solo, how do i learn it properly? cause i think it's hard to hit 100% corect notes if it's a crazy run?

And one more thing, (relating a bit to question one...)
im currently giving the solo from Give into me by Michael Jackson and Slash a try. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAe7nRYzzJI The first one i can do.

Is there a lesson for me to take on the site that can help me to do that run at the end 4:24? As i said before, i can do the fast stuff by doing something similar, but I feel im missing some off those Slash phrases which i love! and i really want to learn them, any ideas?

Last thing, do anyone have a suggestion on amp settings to get Slash sound, i want to try it out? And yes, i know alot of it is in your fingers, but since my style of playing is also sounding similar to his. I would like to know the amp settings?

Thanks :)

It is "hard to hit 100% the right notes in a crazy run", but you can eventually do it.

Once again, it depends whether your problem is figuring out what the notes should be, or playing them once you know what they are.

I think there may be not a lot more to add than already suggested. Take the run to pieces, note by note. Also, studying scales can help, because knowing the key the piece is in and the scales the guitarist tends to use can also help suggest the notes.

If you know what the notes are, then two things are good

1) Playing the phrase at the speed you can, and working up
2) Playing a tiny piece of the phrase very fast, and stitching these together.

GaJ

Key to learning someone else's solos, play them over and over and over and over. I would get a program that allows you to loop sections. I have a Stealthplug that came with Amplitube Live amp sims (good sounding too) and the interface has a feature that allows you to play along to music files selected from your computer. It also allows you to loop a specific section of a song to infinitely repeat that section. I haven't actually used the feature but it seem really cool.

I remember learning Randy Rhoades' solo for 'I Don't Know' and it has this quick ascending run that I just could not get. It was '89 and I had a tape player that I had to rewind a million times but I did that so many times with that run until I got it.

It's really about getting the notes imprinted in your brain. You can't naturally 'flow out' someone else's stuff necessarily right off the bat.

In breaking down a solo, don't do it 'beginning to end' but break the solo in to sections. In most instances, the original artist of the solo wrote the solo that way so it makes sense to learn it that way.

Originally Posted by: caponi14If i want to do a fast part in a solo, how do i learn it properly? cause i think it's hard to hit 100% corect notes if it's a crazy run?
[/quote]
Play it right slowly at first. Then gradually increase the speed.

Doing it right at slower speeds has two components.

1. Play it right rhythmically, space the notes properly just slower. For example, play it exactly at half-speed to start with. If you can get it right, move the tempo up. This will help you isolate problem spots to work harder on.

2. Play it cleanly, technically. The mechanics of it, the physical process is crucial to get right smoothly and effortlessly at a slow speed, or it will never sound right up to speed. Use this time to focus on playing with a light touch, not squeezing the neck too hard, etc.

Originally Posted by: caponi14im currently giving the solo from Give into me by Michael Jackson and Slash ... Is there a lesson for me to take on the site that can help me to do that run at the end 4:24?

Sounds like he's doing an ascending E minor scale in various groupings of 3s, 4s and 6s.

Try these exercises:

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=419
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=213
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=661
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=612
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=253
[QUOTE=caponi14]
Last thing, do anyone have a suggestion on amp settings to get Slash sound, i want to try it out?

Sounds like a Les Paul (listen to that PAF humbucker! probably the bridge pickup) maxed out through an overdrive/distortion unit (rack or pedal) into a hot-modded Marshall. The bass is up (8-10), the mids are present but not too high (5-6), the treble is not too biting, so probably down a bit also (4-6). All that is just an educated guess, I don't know Slash's rig or actual settings.

Hope that helps!

Hey Chris thanks alot, i wonna know something. How experienced should i be before i try to tackle this? iv been playing a little over a year?

And im not done with the Rock courses yet? I quess i should finish them first right?

Here is my two cents,

I have been playing for 25 years on and off but I am constantly learning as guitar has many diferent approaches.

The key to a great solo for me has been to build up an arsenal of modes/scales and riffs. Practice them so they are committed to memory.

And then when playing shut your brain off, listen and feel the music.

This is where the magic happens at least for me.

Thinking is the death of music, therefore learn as much as you can so you do not have to think while playing.

The links for the lessons from Chris S that are in the body of this post are some of the best lessons here and are great to study. I find myself going back and rehearsing along with these fundamental lessons. Not to mention he has some really incredible speed and great teaching technique.

Cheers,

Jeff

Hi there one good tip for you is stop practising your scales in scale order and also don't practise your scales one pattern at a time play a few notes in one box and slide up or down to the next play a few notes there and move up or down again this should get you into playing diagonally rather than vertically and soon you'll be getting some pretty cool sounds. One other thing is standard licks are great but use them wisely don't just jump from one lick to the next give some thought to your phrasing. Hope this helps a bit. Happy soloing. Wayne

I had exactly the same problem as caponi. Thanks for all the good tips, but can you name me some great solo's I should try playing?