hi i know all my scale major , minor , triad , mode , pentatonic . i still dont know how to solo , i past over 10 year watching video on youtube for this topic but all the video are all confusing and didnt approach how to solo effectively. i want help if possible please , i am a grade 8 student in music.
You are grade 8 so I assume you are able to play most of the scales and chords reasonably well, technically?
Can you give me some more info. Like can you play any licks that you’ve learnt, able to string bend, vibrato etc? Is it improvising ideas that you’re struggling with rather than the ability to actually play lead parts?
What kinds of genre are you into? Any chance of some audio examples of you playing?
Email shown here https://www.guitar-chords.org.uk/contact.html
Honestly, if you can build melodies you’re already 3/4s the way there. Everything else is pretty much throwing in and mixing licks and ideas from your “virtual lick bag”.
Personally, I find the problem with many tutorials is that they supposedly teach you how to solo by repeating the same old stuff as everyone else does, for example … “here’s how to play a major and pentatonic scale – use your own ideas and don’t build your solo on cliché licks”.
(Small rant coming)
In my opinion, this is wrong on every level. Firstly, why is it that every tutorial labelled something like “take your soloing to the next level” or “advanced soloing” or my favourite hate of all “the secrets only the pros know” – they all spend the first half of the lesson (that you paid good money for) slowly, and step by step showing you the notes of the minor pentatonic scale! Really? Advanced soloing? Secrets? … you get my drift 🙂 If you need to be shown these absolute basics then this is for absolute beginners without a clue, and it’s nothing more than a practice schedule. There is no soloing info here whatsoever, just scale practice.
They then go straight into the next chapter by demonstrating ridiculously difficult stuff that even many seasoned guitarists might struggle with. That wouldn’t be quite so bad if they also explained how they got that good and how they come up with the ideas, i.e., the learning path they took to achieve those results and the struggles they had getting there.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been playing guitar for many years and I still buy these things. I’ve probably got a few hundred books and videos and still sign up to various online memberships occasionally. I rarely work through any of them, I just collect things and browse through looking for ideas. Nothing much else. The things I absolutely never buy are those tutorials titled anything like the above – avoid them like the plague.
OK, back to the non-ranting reality 🙂
Here’s how you learn to improvise, the quick non-detailed version.
1: Pick something reasonably simple like a three chord 12 bar rock, blues or pop backing track. In fact, take 100 of them in different keys, different feels and tempos.
2: Learn some cliché licks, not too fast or difficult, but not completely basic.
3: Play each lick 1000 times over each backing track. Change the lick to make it fit if necessary.
4: Play around with the pentatonic scales (to start with) over the same backing tracks. Experiment with major and minor pentatonic. Listen to what works and what doesn’t but leave it half hour before switching between minor and major – or choose a different backing track in a different key. You need to give your ears time to adjust or things might sound wrong when they aren’t. In general, blues / rock might work with either minor or major over the same track unless the piece is in a very obvious minor key – major might not work here.
5: Repeat all of the above 100 times.
Obviously this will take a lot of time, you won’t do this in seven days or four weeks 🙂 it’s ongoing. With each day, or week you will get better and better at it. You will, in your own way, learn what’s difficult to be taught – some if this is kind of subconscious, you need to learn to listen and this will come with experience. Over time, everything else will make more sense, different scales, different chord progressions, different styles etc. But absolutely start there, learn from the bottom, not the top.
I’m going to come back to this so please keep posting your questions because this could be interesting – it’s really at the heart of what this website is about – the gap in the middle that’s difficult to explain and leaves many guitarists in the “rut”.
Once again thank you very much for your kindness to take your time to enlighten me. For me, having a virtual lick bag is a whole new concept that I’m going to apply to the letter as you described it to me.
Yes indeed on youtube most of the videos are very confusing and almost all are the same. Your opinions are right, when you said that” Firstly, why is it that every tutorial labeled something like “take your soloing to the next level” or “advanced soloing” or my favorite hate of all “the secrets only the pros know” – they all spend the first half of the lesson ( that you paid good money for) slowly, and step by step showing you the notes of the minor pentatonic scale! Really? Advanced soloing? secrets? … you get my drift 🙂 ” I’ve got you bro 😂 I laughed until I cried. Seriously you’re right and I also understand why even if it turns around the bush you continue to watch for the purpose of all the same to retain some good things. It’s all in your Honor.
Thank you again for the advice you gave me, it’s really going to give me courage to resume my path and to be able to improvise freely. I also want to send you my progress from time to time to follow up if possible.
As you said for all of us, we must not be afraid to start at the bottom of the ladder, one day we will all succeed in climbing it. God bless you my friends, thank you for the person you are, I know you do your best to help as many people as possible and we rarely find these people thank god for allowing me to talk to you. Be blessed.
Please do come back and let me know how you get on. I need to try to put up a new article on this subject, could be interesting.
First week, so I learned 1 lick by day so I know 7 of them. I played it on hundreds of backings. My observation is that I must increase my learning of licks instead of one per day. I have to learn 3 or 5 a day. Once I’ve finished the lick shots I have nothing more to do on the backing track, I replay and replay the same thing.
Sounds to me like you might be going too fast. Try adding or creating some ideas now of your own by experimenting with some of the licks you have learned. For example, rearrange the notes of the lick, change the duration of some of the notes, pick one small part of the lick and repeat it before continuing, try to drag it out to last twice the length, or do the opposite. Anything you can think of.
Imagine you have a backing track with a 12 or 24 bar solo (just for example) but there are no such things as scales and your guitar is limited to only playing the notes you learned in the lick. This is all you have to work with, nothing else. You are allowed to do whatever you want with those notes, but those notes only. What ideas can you come up with? Restricting yourself in this way should help you find new ideas. You can hang on the notes longer, bend, slide, repeat, double up, vibrato. Spend 20 minutes or so playing around with that limitation and see if it helps you find new ways of thinking.
Thank you for responding to me quickly. I learned to play the guitar on my own before going to take music lessons. So for me it’s not a transcription problem. I can perfectly reproduce a solo that I hear by ear or know which chord is used just by listening to music. I think more like you say, it’s more a problem of improvisational ideas. I can’t build melodies that make sense in my improvisations. For the kind of music I do, pop, rock, jazz, reggae and world music. For audio currently I’m not at home and I do not have my guitar with me. As soon as it is possible I will send them to you. Do you have an e-mail address or a way to transfer it to you here?