3 Blues Guitar Soloing Secrets
Minor and Major
Instead of running around minor or major pentatonic positions, get into the habit of using both.
Many blues players use a mixture of both the minor and major scales as well as the blues scale. This one secret will give your solos a whole new dimension.
An easy way to do this is to use the pentatonic major scale over the I chord, and switch to the pentatonic minor on the IV and V chords. Pop on your favourite blues jam track and try this out.
If you play the major scale over the IV chord you’ll notice that it sounds kind of odd. The major third tone is the major seventh of the IV chord and clashes with the chord’s dominant seventh note. The minor third hits that dominant seventh and sounds way better.
Play Less Notes
A big mistake lots of novice blues soloists make is to play too many notes. Once you’ve learned the pentatonic or blues scales you’re usually eager to show off your knowledge by trying to go as fast as you can and play as many notes as possible in the least possible time.
Your licks and solos can be made much more effective, though, by limiting the notes you play, and their quantity. To develop this skill select at most three or four notes from the available scales and practice licks and whole solos with only those notes.
Throw In Some Chords
You can improve your solos by developing your skill with the blues scales, but another way to get ahead fast is to throw in a few chords from time to time.
As with any other trick, the skill here is not to overdo it. Don’t start playing chords on every bar, but punctuate your single note licks with chords or chord fragments from time to time and you’ll take your solos to new heights.
Of course, the other important trick with this technique is to hit the right chord. You can practice this by firing off one, two or four bar licks and ending each one by hitting the right chord for that bar. Again, use a jam track, or record a simple chord backing, so your mistakes will stand out.
Bonus: Getting Chromatic
Here’s a bonus secret for you, you don’t have to stick to the scales all the time. Throwing in out of scale notes builds tension in your solos that you release by ending on a scale tone.
Practice linking notes of the scale with chromatic runs. This technique works well as a lead in to new phrases. You can take the tension to its maximum by using out of time rhythms too.
The basic ingredients of blues guitar solos are quite simple to learn, the pentatonic scale positions can be learned and memorized relatively easily and quickly. But don’t stop there, there are plenty of different ways to apply them to create more interesting sounds. These three secrets will give you a good start, but keep on the look out for more to build your bag of blues solo tricks.
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How to Play Country Lead Guitar
Many guitarists play their country solos on the Fender Telecaster with a Fender tube “Twin”, Super Reverb or Deluxe Reverb amplifier. On the other hand, if they are on a tight budget they have been known to settle for a Peavey tube amp. One piece of equipment you will not need is the whammy bar. It is not used in playing country music.
In contrast to other musical genres that use the electric guitar, country music does not employ a wide variety of electronic effects in guitar solos. Alot of country guitar players use a strictly clean sound, maybe sprucing the music up with a little reverberation. The only effect consistently utilized by country guitar soloists is compression which enforces limits on the sound waves produced by the guitar. This effect enhances the volume of the softer notes, and slightly mutes the louder notes. This makes the overall volume seem more even.
When it comes to technique you can start off as a flatpicker but many country guitar players will use a thumbpick in combination with the index and ring finger. This naturally increases your level of versatility more than somewhat. There is a technique called “chicken pickin” which involves popping the guitar strings with your fingers. It is a little hard to describe in writing but you can see plenty of examples on YouTube, but to get the general idea, try this experiment: hold your right hand over the guitar strings, then mute your E (sixth) string by resting your index finger on it down towards the bridge. Next, pluck the string with your thumb. This will give you a “thuck” sound. To complete the chicken pickin move, pluck the open string with the nail of your index finger. This move is repeated until it comes naturally.
Country solo playing can easily begin in the first position on the guitar. When you begin to play country guitar solos just play over the chords. Do not go looking for a “country scale”, although the blues scale is quite handy in country guitar playing. The trick is to practice with whatever chord shapes you have at your stage of playing and see what kind of riffs, licks and tricks you can get out of each of them. It is a very interesting way to learn because every chord has its unique character. Start with your basic chords like C, D, E, G, and A.
So if you want to learn to play country guitar solos which guitar players do you listen to? Listening to Chet Atkins will teach alot to a guitarist in any genre. He is largely responsible for the smooth Nashville sound which is so attractive to many music lovers. Chet owes his style to Merle Travis, using his thumb to pick bass notes and other fingers to play the melody and fills. And do not forget to look for music recorded by Merle Travis himself. Another guitar great is Jerry Reed. A guitarist with boundless energy and enthusiasm, he played on the Elvis Presley single of his own compositions “Guitar Man” and “US Male”. This list could go on and on, so let us finish by mentioning Albert Lee, a British guitar player admired by many other famous guitarists.
Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.
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Easy Guitar Lead Lessons
The most obvious and also the most freely available guitar teaching resource on the internet is guitar tablature. You can start reading guitar tab in a matter of minutes, and the more esoteric symbols used in tabs can be learnt over time as your guitar technique improves. The guitar student who aspires to being a lead guitarist should augment their tab collection with some time spent trying to work on learning material by ear. If you find picking up lead guitar solos by ear heavy going, then work on whatever you can pick up from tabs but keep plugging away at learning lead guitar by ear.
One thing you should search for in tab archives is guitar scale patterns. You can usually start with a scale in one position and work out where to play in other positions for yourself. Again, supplement your tab learning with developing your ear. Arpeggio patterns can also be found in tab form. The most important scales to learn for a beginning lead guitar player are the five shapes of the pentatonic scales. The pentatonic scales are easy to learn and guitarists find that audiences love listening to improvisations on the pentatonic scales. The favorite pentatonic scale shape is the minor pentatonic at the fifth fret on the guitar’s neck:
Pattern One:
E—————————————5–8—-
B——————————–5–8———–
G————————-5–7——————
D——————-5–7————————
A————5–7——————————-
E——-5-8————————————-
Not quite so easy to play is this one:
Pattern Two:
E————————————-8—10—-
B——————————8—10———–
G————————-7–9——————
D——————-7–10———————–
A————-7–10—————————–
E——-8–10———————————–
But what you gain with this shape is the facility to move up the fretboard in a sneaky and guitaristic way.
The next three pentatonic shapes are a bit more challenging, but if you find yourself balking at the extra hard work remember how cool it looks playing way up the top of the neck.
Pattern Three:
E————————————-10–12—-
B——————————10–13———–
G————————-9–12—————–
D——————-10–12———————-
A————-10–12—————————-
E——-10–12———————————-
Pattern Four:
E————————————-12–15—-
B——————————13–15———–
G————————12–14—————–
D——————-12–14———————-
A————-12–15—————————-
E——-12–15———————————-
Pattern Five:
E————————————-15–17—-
B——————————15–17———–
G————————14–17—————–
D——————-14–17———————-
A————-15–17—————————-
E——-15–17———————————-
Some people find practicing 
lead guitar alone difficult because the presence of the other band members helps to get the creative juices flowing. Playing along with CDs is a great way to practice improvisation. You need to know when to put the metronome and scales away and do some good old bedroom grandstanding. You could also play along to drum machines. Or you could play along to some music that is not familiar to you. Take a moment to find what key you are playing in and start jamming. Practicing like this will help you stay out of the rut of playing the same material all the time.
Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.
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Guitar Lesson – Lead Guitar Traps & How to Avoid Them
By Mike P Hayes
How many lead guitar books have you bought that are absolutely chock full of scales? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by this avalanche of information, the fact that there are thousands of scales that have to be learnt in twelve different keys and played over the entire fingerboard is enough to scare off all but the very determined guitarist.
In fact, in many instances when confronted by this seemingly impossible task of playing lead guitar the unfortunate result is the player giving up in frustration, I say unfortunate because it certainly doesn’t have to be that way.
Here’s a few concepts and attitudes about scales that will help you ‘pin your ears on straight’ and save you countless hours of frustrating, counterproductive practice.
Fact 1: You don’t have to learn all the scales – now isn’t that a relief straight away, most guitar instructional material would have you believe that you would be a second rate guitarist unless you knew every scale backwards (and forwards).
Nothing could be further from the truth! Playing music has absolutely nothing to do with learning hundreds of scales and playing them as fast as you possibly can all over the guitar like a “bee in a bottle”.
How many scales you need to learn will depend on the style(s) of music you want to play, but in any case you will only be looking at a very small number of scales, usually between six and ten maximum.
You should however, learn your scales thoroughly in each of the twelve keys.
Fact 2: Scales alone are not music – scales are nothing more than
a musical alphabet. To use this analogy of music scales and spoken language … it therefore stands to reason that simply reciting an alphabet (regardless of how fast you could recite it), would not communicate anything!
Scales can become music when carefully woven into the musical soundscape by an experienced musician.
The reason why musicians learn different scales is to help them express themselves better in a variety of musical settings, it also help make their music more interesting by adding variety to their music.
The important distinction is to make certain you are learning the scales that are relevant to your music.
Fact 3: Playing scales fast will not help you improve your ‘ear’.
If you have ever watched any of the thousands of lead guitar videos where the guitarist plays scales at warp speed setting the fretboard alight with his or her facile fingers display you will know apart from it being very entertaining that …
(a) it was a great chance for the guitarist to “show off”,
(b) it didn’t communicate anything … it was just a random phrase and
(c) you most likely did not learn anything apart from the fact that you don’t want to hear it again.
When you play a scale fast you only hear the first and last notes which incidentally happen to be the same note only an octave apart.
Because you are passing over the rest of the notes in the scale so fast your ear does not get a chance to listen to how each individual note sounds in relation to the previous sounds, the notes simply ‘blur’ together.
Playing meaningful music is about constantly making choices and reacting to the sounds around you, it has nothing to do with “showing off” and playing random phrases as fast as possible.
To summarize : Select the relevant scales for your style(s) of music, learn to play these scales in all the twelve keys, and learn the art of playing your scales slowly. These tips will accelerate your lead guitar playing and will help you escape the dreaded lead guitar traps.
Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com
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Beginners Guitar Lessons, Scales – 4 Tips to Get the Most From Your Lead Playing
By Mike P Hayes
Learning 
guitar scales can be frustrating and confusing for the beginning guitarist. Often the student simply doesn’t know where to start.
How important are scales?
It appears that learning and understanding scales is vital to becoming a better guitarist, how many scales should I learn and which scales should I learn first?
Good questions, the truth is scales re important, they’re like our musical alphabet. The thing to keep in mind is that you only need to know a few scales, guitarists often become obsessed with practicing scales and over their real purpose which is to make music.
Here’s a list to help you choose what scales to practice and eliminate the confusion.
Tip 1 — Select a style
With literally thousands of scales to learn the first thing to do is decide on which style of music you want to play. Certain scales are more applicable to particular types of music e.g., the minor pentatonic scale works well for rock, blues, metal music…mainly songs with power chords.
The blues scale is used mainly for rock, blues, metal music while the major pentatonic scale is mostly used for country, pop, country rock …generally songs with open chords.
Of course, I’m generalizing here, you can use any scale you wish for any style of music, however some scales work better than others. The idea is to use the correct musical alphabet (scale) for the style of music you want to play.
Tip 2 — start on the keynote
Simply running up and down a scale won’t produce any meaningful music no matter how fast you play them. It won’t communicate anything to the listener.
The idea is to train our brain and fingers to make musical decisions, which note do you want to play next? Where is the note I’m hearing in my head is it higher or lower than the previous note?
To get this brain — fingers connection practice starting on the keynote of the scale and decide whether your next note is higher or lower than the keynote.
The keynote is the first note of the scale, e.g., the keynote for the A minor pentatonic scale would be “A”.
Tip 3 — record a background
Once you have decided on a scale to practice, record a background in the key you want to practice. The recording does not have to be elaborate, a simple acoustic guitar will work fine.
Record the backing track for 5 to 10 minutes duration, this will give you plenty of time to practice and try out your ideas.
A good idea is to try and play just one note (the keynote is an idea choice for this), practice all different types of rhythms, slides, bends etc., to see how creative you can be.
Recording a backing track is very helpful as you will find that you react differently to certain chord textures, the same note will sound different when played against a variety of chords.
Tip 4 — learn all keys
Guitarists should practice their favorite scale(s) in all keys, this is especially important when working with singers.
Each key has it’s own personality, certain keys have a warm feeling, while others are bright.
Try playing a “G” minor pentatonic scale over a recorded background in the key of “G”, then, play a “B” minor pentatonic scale over a pre-recorded background in the key of “B”.
Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain” the whole idea of scales is to help you play music. Think of music as a language, scales are our musical alphabet, knowing the alphabet is just the beginning, it’s how we use the alphabet to communicate that’s important.
These ideas will help you develop your own style and soon you will be transferring the music you are hearing in your head onto the guitar.
Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com
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