Ever seen concerts where the lead guitarist mesmerizes the entire crowd with his powerful performance doing a guitar solo? To be on center stage and own it for a moment in time – yes – this is a dream of most, if not all aspiring guitarists.  Here are some tips to help that dream become a reality:

Guitar solos are used in many different styles of music – rock, blues, jazz, even classical.  Most of the time, solos come about through a lot of improvisation.  Playing guitar solos can be a wonderful and memorable experience if one is really prepared and up for the challenge.  Aside from that it also helps in intensifying the connection between the music and the listener.

Studying some of the basics could greatly help one learn guitar solo correctly.  First, practice the different scales, blues, pentatonic, major, minor, etc. The more comfortable you are with these scales the better your chances are of successfully doing a solo.  Incorporate scales to solos.   Most solos are merely basic scales that are manipulated and combined with other scales.  Practice the scale forwards and backwards, using alternate picking.  Expand horizons by trying different ways of playing the scales.

Inject new life and emotion to it by using techniques like vibrato.  Although most guitarists apply vibrato immediately to a note, one could also delay it a little bit by playing the note naturally on the guitar before applying vibrato. Bending also adds a significant quality to guitar solos. Play arpeggios and scales with the double-picking style for a little uniqueness.

As the saying goes, “It’s not what you play but how you play it.”  To learn guitar solo, improvisation comes in handy too.  There are ways to approach improvisation: the vertical approach and the horizontal approach.

In the vertical approach, the guitar player does a solo following or according to the current chord while in the horizontal approach, the player solos according to the current scale.

Having and maintaining daily practice and by learning as many licks as one can in every practice is also essential to one who wants to learn guitar solo. Include renowned tabs played by guitar masters for they could help in improving one’s guitar playing skills.  Continuously improve by listening to other solos and studying their styles and thinking of other ways to improve quality.  Use a melodic solo in the song.  Using modes including the Aeolian, Mixolydian and Dorian are helpful too.  These modes have different starting notes, but contain the same notes as the key signature; the result is a great sound, as all of the notes fit into the song melodically.

Filed under: Lead Guitar

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