Monthly Archives: August 2009

7 Ideas for Creating Powerful Guitar Solos

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Eddie Van Halen - This is How to Play Guitar Solos!If you wish to not only learn how to play guitar solos, but master your own compositions then you’ll need a plan. There’s an old saying that is as useful here as it is in any area of life ‘If you Fail to Plan you Plan to Fail’. If you want to create a guitar solo that is able to move everyone who hears it, then putting yourself in the right mindset and environment when in the writing stage can really pay off. Now, from playing guitar myself for 20 years I know that music just flows, and you can’t really explain where it comes from but it’s just in you – this is true. What I’m talking about is outside of that and works in conjunction with your existing talents, the technique with the inspiration if you will.

I will share 7 ideas here that will help to put you in the right frame of mind, and give you the best chance at getting
inspired and capturing the moment when it arises, and believe me the more you do this the more you will want to do…

Environment – If you’re learning how to play guitar solos it doesn’t matter too much where you are because you’re just replicating someone else’s work. When creating your own on the other hand, it matters a lot. To create you need to feel creative, so find an atmosphere that enhances that side of you.

Improvise – You need to practice techniques regularly and master the fret board by knowing the notes it consists of, but in the creation phase it’s time to be free flowing. There are a few ways to achieve this such as starting with a start & end note and let it flow, but to start I would suggest knowing the progression that you’re playing over and picking common notes and root notes in the chords and incorporating them somewhere, until you get an idea of where you want to take it.

Chunk Down – Break your ideas down into small sections that you can practice individually. This helps you to create
common themes and eliminate and change anything you don’t like at a very focused level.

Record Your Ideas – When practicing this step is not necessary but when writing you’ll find that you come up with so many ideas that you haven’t got a hope of remembering it all. Record it all and you can go back over it after.

Create Themes – I mentioned this earlier, but creating a small section that repeats and hooks the listener back into
something they recognize is a great way to sound professional while creating a memorable piece. Cover bands are popular because they play what people know, and a theme that repeats and flows through not just the solo but the song, can have the same affect.

Try Alternate scales and Modes – When you have found something that you think sounds good but could be better, try the same pattern in a different scale or mode. Sometimes just one note change from doing this can make all the difference to the mood and feel.

Stay in Touch – With the music that is. Get inspiration from wherever you can on a consistent basis whether that means going to gigs, subscribing to band websites and newsletters, videos, magazines, guitar workshops etc… The important thing is to know what is out there and take an active role in your scene.

Be yourself, play what is in you and not just want others want you to play and you’ll do well. Add these 7 steps and learn how to market yourself and you’ll be unstoppable!

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Blues Phrasing Explained

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How to Play Guitar Solos - BluesWhen it comes to playing the blues, one thing stands out before all else – feeling. There is a certain essence that’s only captured in the blues style, and when learning how to play lead guitar in the blues style it becomes even more prevalent.

There are two things to note when it comes to getting it right. You must have both the emotive guitar tones that fit the mood you want to achieve with the song, and secondly it should be contained in a memorable pattern, otherwise known as a phrase.

What exactly is phrasing? The last sentence almost gave it away…it’s basically a set of notes formed into a pattern with a start, middle and an end. This phrase can be used in the riff or solo, and can be played as a one off or part of the main theme and used in different octaves or even varying keys.

For the purpose of this article we’ll look at how to play lead guitar phrasing in the style of Blues, and just to get an idea of what it sounds like and how to first think about it when we’re structuring together our own solos. There are certain notes you may want to listen out for too, ones that are commonly played in all good blues solos and ones that are really only played in this particular style, in particular the ‘Blue note’. It’s a little mysterious by name but just means a note (commonly the third of the scale) that is bent slightly up, but not quite to the next note resulting in the in between area known as the blue note.

Check out this Video by Keith Wyatt as he shows you the basics of Blues Phrasing.

For the most comprehensive guitar lessons online, try Jamorama!

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Killer Sweeps! – How to Play Guitar Solos

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When learning how to play guitar solos there are quite a few flashy techniques that can make you stand out from the crowd, and all have varying levels of difficulty. There is however one technique that is feared by the masses, and if you can tame it, will make you stand out in any crowd as being an expert on your chosen instrument!

That of course, is Sweep Picking.

Sweep Picking is simply the technique of playing the individual notes of an arpeggio in a ‘sweeping’ motion, and is one of the quickest ways around the neck while playing individual notes. An Arpeggio literally means ‘broken chord’ and can be used with any chord shape. In essence, you sweep (technique) over the arpeggio (notes) to create a devastating assault on the listener…

Let’s take a look at some examples and then we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of it and get you on your way!

Here’s an example from one of the best solo artists around today – Jeff Loomis, and if you want to master arpeggios then this is a must see!

Here’s the Tab to play along with, good luck!

Jeff Loomis - Devil Theory Sweeps

Key points to note when learning to sweep:

  1. Keep a firm grip on the broom!
  2. play around with different picking positions – i find it much easier to turn my picking hand slightly to the right and cut through the notes rather than playing with the pick level with the strings.
  3. As with all techniques practice slowly with a metronome or drum machine, and only speed up once it’s fluid and you have clean notes (This is one technique that it pays to learn properly and take the time to get it right, the rewards are well worth the effort!).
  4. Make up your own patterns and when you feel a little more comfortable with it, throw in a slide or a hammer on here and there (see video for examples of this) and spice it up a little.
  5. Always push yourself with new patterns and don’t let yourself get too comfortable.

When learning how to play guitar solos it pays to break things down into small chunks and practice, practice, practice! Have fun with these and when you get something you like, use it as a warm up and you’ll be surprised what it does to your solo capacity.

Here’s some other Articles you may find useful on Sweep Picking:

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Sounding Pro with a Simple Practice Plan

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Brian May shows How to Play Guitar SolosHave you ever been disheartened when you see a great guitar player pulling off a massive solo and thinking ‘I could never do that’? This so often happens to less experienced players when they are practicing how to play guitar solos and a lot of the time, they end up giving up because of it which is a tragedy.

The truth is the majority of people who listen to music want something they can connect with, so if you are in the above category and feel like giving up this may put your mind at ease.

Instead of looking at what you can’t play, focus on what you can and do it well!

When learning how to play guitar solos the most important thing is playing every note well, with great technique and emotion. If you can’t play the flashiest solos yet don’t worry about it – it will happen in time with the right practice. There are certain things to concentrate on when practicing that will make you sound like a better player while playing very few notes, so try these out and forget what everyone else is doing – this is about you.

Practicing with single notes:

If every note has to be spot on it makes sense to practice notes on their own as well as in scale runs. Try practicing notes like this and see how it feels:

  • Pick a scale, let’s use the C major scale (C Ionian) as a starting position
  • Play through all the notes in the scale slowly with a metronome, and with the most important thing, total control of every note. Make sure you watch your fingering as well, and move your hand as little as possible by placing a different finger on each fret (1st finger – 3rd fret/ 2nd finger – 5th fret/ 4th finger – 7th fret etc).
  • When you can play it through with each note sounding smooth and it feels easy, put the metronome to half the time of what it is now.
  • Play each note again in half time and practice a steady vibrato on each note, and make sure the vibrato is in time with the metronome as well (it’s not enough that the note is played on the beat, the vibrato should be practiced in time as well).
  • When this feels easy, practice sliding up from the previous note in the scale, so in this case slide up from the B note before the root note of the scale. The aim is to pick the note in the same scale previous to the one you’re playing and slide from it.
  • Combine the two by sliding up to the note and then adding vibrato.
  • When this all feels comfortable, try adding a downward slide as your coming down the scale to add a new element.
  • When this is done and you feel good about it, turn the metronome back to the speed it originally was and play through the scale again normally, and you should find it a little easier and you’ll have more control over the notes. Keep speeding it up as you start feeling comfortable with it, and when you get to the stage when you start making mistakes, start over with the next scale up the neck (try playing all the scales of the notes in the C major scale, C D E F G A B C – so the next one here is the standard D scale).
  • Repeat for all scales until you get back to C further up the neck.

It sounds a little basic but you may be surprised how challenging it can be, and this way of practicing alone can give a huge control over the notes you play and at the same time, set you up for both knowing the fret board and learning modes (both will really help you with composition).

Good luck with it and remember to take it slow and get that control over the notes before you move on to other techniques or speed, and your playing will improve tenfold!

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Mastering Artificial Harmonics

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Picking PositionLearning how to play guitar solos is easy when you know how, but becoming a master at any specific technique is another level. There are a few techniques that are considered more advanced because of their level of difficulty, and Artificial Harmonics for a lot of guitarists fall into this category.

Natural Harmonics are produced by lightly tapping a string in set places along the neck, resulting in a bell like sound. These can be sounded at multiple positions, such as 5th, 7th and 12th frets, and can be played with very little effort.

Artificial Harmonics on the other hand require a specific technique, and although are a little harder to play, they can be played on any note or position on the neck. There are a few ways to play these Artificial Harmonics such as playing a note first and then lightly touching the same string at an interval equivalent to a natural harmonic i.e. if you play a note on the second fret, you can move the natural harmonics that are usually in 5th, 7th and 12th fret positions up two frets to result in the same harmonic but two semi tones higher. This is very similar to a natural harmonic and is self explanatory once you know what a natural harmonic is, only moved up by the note you choose to play beforehand.

The main way I choose to use artificial harmonics when learning how to play guitar solos is through the use of Pinch Harmonics.

Pinch Harmonics are simply ‘pinching’ the string with your playing hand as opposed to your fretting hand resulting in a harmonic squealing sound. To do this, all I do is rest my thumb and the edge of the pick on the string at the same time. When I strike the note with both the thumb and pick it results in a Pinch harmonic and you should be able to hear the difference straight away, however mastering this can take a little time so be patient and keep working on it.

The reason I prefer this in general (and this is only a personal preference) is because it frees my left hand to continue with whatever other technique I want to use with the harmonic. You can use this while simply bending a note, adding it as an accent in a fast scale run, or any other variation including with dives and other more savage techniques.

If you have trouble getting the sound smooth, try moving your picking hand position to get either more pick than thumb or vice versa, or even to cut more through the strings in a downward motion. Play around and use what feels comfortable to you.

Here’s a great video for getting a pinch harmonic sound, regardless of your level of expertise – enjoy!

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Killer Tremolo Bar Tricks! – How to play guitar solos

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If you’ve ever want to learn how to play guitar solos with a level of intensity that makes others stop and take notice, then mastering the tremolo or whammy bar is a must. Because the variation that you can achieve with this is so great, it can go either way between creating or playing a killer solo, or just sounding sloppy.

Here are my top 5 tips on how to tame that tremolo and make it work the way you need it to!

  1. Practice it slowly with all the control you would use for practicing anything else. It can very easily turn into a mess when you don’t know what you’re doing, so fluid movements and control over the bar are a must.
  2. Practice to a metronome. It needs to be said that if you want to improve any notes you need to play to a backing of some kind, and the easiest and cheapest is a metronome.
  3. Aim for a Specific note. Things like dives and the more intense moves sound so random that they’re often mistaken as being a ‘hope for the best’ technique, but as with all other techniques if you have a sound or note in mind before going for it then you will give yourself a greater level of control. After all, you can’t hit a target you can’t see.
  4. Mix it with other Techniques. When learning how to play guitar solos it helps to combine a few different sounds and apply a range of techniques to the overall section. Try combining slides, hammer ons, scale runs with some tremolo technique and see the difference it makes.
  5. Experiment. These are all general guidelines and with everything that is considered an ‘art’, there are no real rules, only ways of doing things that get a result. Play around with different effects while learning these, and get different moods and tones, all of which can add to the fun of practicing and make you a better overall player.

Here’s a video of Dimebag Darrel showing you how to pull off those trademark screams and other tremolo tricks, have fun with it and I’ll speak to you soon!

Glenn.

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Getting that Blues Feel…

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Today we’ll be looking at the style of Blues and learning how to play guitar solos around the blues pentatonic scale shapes. Blues is one of those styles that sounds so simple when you listen to it because of the natural flow, but can be challenging to say the least because you have to put so much of yourself into it to pull it off…

There are a few basic tricks that can really help you do it well, and bring out that creative juice, one of them being this particular phrase based solely on the pentatonic shape. Listen to Marty as he shows you how to not only play the technique, but also gives you tips on how to join your own ideas and musical thoughts together.

These phrases should be practiced with some form of backing track if possible, just to give you the right feel for your playing. If you don’t have any way to do this then playing to a metronome or drum machine is fine.

You can also use this technique for other styles of playing as well. For example, if you were learning how to play guitar solos in Rock or Jazz, this would be a great addition to your playing and really add a bluesy feel while playing another style.

One thing to remember, this is not limited to this shape or phrase. How could you use this pattern for other scales and shapes?

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Pentatonic Scale Shapes – The Must Know Basic!

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Today we’ll be looking at the 5 Pentatonic Scale Shapes that give you a great framework to solo around, and ones that if you know them will give you the advantage if you ever need to learn how to play guitar solos. In the this video example from Joe Musella at Berklee music, he shows you clearly how to play the 5 shapes and the fingering involved.

This example starts with A as the root note, but these shapes can be used all over the neck for any notes you choose. Key points to remember are:

  • Work out the chord progression that you wish to play over
  • Find the chord root notes in the shapes
  • Choose which shape fits for soloing either up or down from the root note.

Pentatonic Scale Shapes
Here are the 5 shapes as they are on the neck, note they do not start on any specific frets – refer to video for placement (Please right click and either View or Save image).

Good luck with these, and if you need any more training remember us at How to Play Guitar Solos!

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How to Play Guitar Solos – Understanding Guitar Tab

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It’s always a challenge learning something new, especially when it comes to things like foreign languages. Music is no different, especially if you’re planning to learn to read sheet music. This can be a daunting task for even the most keen students among us, but you don’t have to learn to sight read to be able to know how to play guitar solos or anything else!

There is a form of written music known as guitar tablature (usually referred to as just ‘Tab’), and this can be so much easier to read as it Is literally written as it is on the guitar, so you can see it and play it. Even with the most basic forms of anything though, it still requires explanation to know how to read and understand it, especially when everyone is suddenly an expert on it, so let’s cover the basics so you can actually learn something whenever you want to.

Just as sheet music has 5 lines on the page where the notes fit into, guitar tab also has lines. The difference being it has one line for each string on the guitar, and instead of notes being drawn in a separate place for every note, they are simply written on the line (string) with the number of the fret they are played on. Simple. You’ll quite often see this tab as a basic form done in a program like notepad, with broken lines made into a music line. If you want to write your own you can use quite a few programs to draw lines such as Microsoft word, or any free word processing program. 

  Badd11                                    E7Madd13
--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|
-----------5--------|-----------5--------|-----------4--------|
--------8-----8-----|--------8-----8-----|--------6-----6-----|
-----9-----------9--|-----9-----------9--|-----6-----------6--|
--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|
--7-----------------|--7-----------------|--0-----------------|

This is what the tab looks like, and you’ll see it has six lines for the six strings, going from the bottom line being the low E string all the way through to the high E string as the top line. The bars are separated the same as any other sheet music, and the chords that the notes are based on are at the top (in this case it’s Badd11 & E7Madd13). The notes are written as the number of the fret played on the string, so it starts with 7th fret on the low E string, then 9th fret on the D string and so on. Easy huh? This combined with a couple of videos to get the feel and sound of the track you’re learning and you’re well on your way.

When the notes call for a specific technique such as a hammer on, vibrato etc it will tell you, and this is what to look out for:

Slide – ( / ) up or ( \ ) down – means to slide, usually from one note to the next.

Vibrato – ( ~ ) means to add vibrato, usually after the note. 

------------------|--------------|-------------------|
--4----5----------|--------------|-------------------|
----------4/6~----|--------------|--6/4---6--6/8-----|
------------------|--------------|-------------------|
------------------|--------------|-------------------|
------------------|--------------|-------------------|

Hammer on – ( h ) means to hammer the note after the ( h ) instead of picking it.

Pull off – ( p ) means to pull off the note before so it sounds the note after the ( p ).

------------------------------|------------------------------|
--5-12p0h7-12p0h9-12p0h7-12p0h|--5-12p0h7-12p0h7-12p0h7-12p0h|
------------------------------|------------------------------|
------------------------------|------------------------------|
------------------------------|------------------------------|
------------------------------|------------------------------|

Other symbols to look out for are ( t ) – Tap ( x ) – dampen the note or palm mute it.

You won’t have too much else in most songs and if you do there will usually be an explanation with it. Just remember, when learning how to play guitar solos it pays to get all the different forms of the song you can to learn from, video/ tab/ live audio etc. This will give you the best chance of getting the overall feel and notes of the song.

If you want more guitar solo advice and lessons, feel free to check out my site How to Play Guitar Solos

Posted via email from glennbird’s posterous

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How to Play Guitar Solos – Learning Guitar Online

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As iv’e talked about in other articles, there are three ways to learn guitar solos, and for the purposes of this article we’ll take a look at the learning how to play guitar solos online method. Most people just browse when it comes to looking up things online, and that is no different when it comes to learning guitar. What i’m going to suggest here is a system to give you the greatest advantage of really getting ahead by using this method, regardless of what style you play or who the lessons come from. Interested?

There are four parts to this, and most people will do just one of the first three. If you do all four you’re guaranteed to see improvements in a very short space of time, and the great thing about doing it online is you can change the lessons or even styles to suit you at any stage. First of all, set up a folder in your computer for each song and categorise it in the style as well – this will make it so much easier for you later down the track. Let’s take a look at the four parts:

1) Get the original song – There are so many sites online that you can download audio or video from, and in this case i’m going to suggest video so you can see what is actually being played. The biggest site for videos is, you guessed it, youtube. There are ways to download youtube videos or videos from any other site, and you can either choose the original clip or a live version, sometimes you don’t have a choice so just grab what looks good and has a clear enough sound.

2) Get the Tab – Like video sites, guitar tab sites are too many to mention, but if you search for specific tabs you will eventually find what you want somewhere. Just for clarification, this doesn’t have to be original tab, because you’ll soon work out what’s right and what’s not from the other steps.

3) Get a fan video lesson – If there is one available, grab a video lesson from a fan who is playing the song you want. There are countless videos of people trying to play their favourite song, so chances are you’ll get something in this area. This is just another interpretation that may give you an idea of how it’s played, as sometimes you may miss things in the other steps.

4) Get software to help – The best software i have found while learning how to play guitar solos is software that slows down the original music. This is more in the category of playing by ear, but if you add it to the songs you’re learning from these other three ways you’ll master it in no time. Imagine being able to slow down the solo and still keep the same pitch so you could replicate it note for note?

Well there you have it. If you do these four steps together there should be nothing you can’t play, and without paying money for one on one tuition this is one of the best ways to learn any song or solo!
If you want more guitar tips and advice, check out my site here – How to Play Guitar Solos

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