Another thing to keep in mind about guitar solos is how many different styles of solos there are in music; it's as big as the variety of music available out there. There are also a few basic "solo secrets" that will help set your solos apart from other guitarists.
To begin, one of the most popular solo scales on the guitar is the blues scale. If you get the blues scale down, your improvisation, or solo, will have a dramatic improvement. Find the blues scale basics here at http://guitar.about.com/od/freebeginnerlessons/a/learn_to_solo.htm.
Ever watch a lead guitarist blazing through a guitar solo, and wonder exactly how they do that? Beginner guitarists ask me this sort of question all the time - they wonder how they figure out which notes sound right before they play them. In the following feature, we'll examine, using online resources, how to go about tackling the basics of learning to create your own guitar solos.
The Blues Scale
The Blues Scale
What many novice guitarists don't realize is that improvising (also referred to as "soloing") does not involve playing a series of random notes, in the hopes that they will sound great together. Rather, guitarists generally draw their guitar solos from a scale, using it as a template to improvise with. The Blues Scale (seen in the image on the right), despite it's name, is a scale which is used extensively in all styles of guitar solos.
Practice the scale forwards and backwards, using alternate picking, making sure to play each note cleanly and evenly. Next, try playing each note twice before moving to the next note. Invent different ways to play the scale that will challenge yourself technically
To use the blues scale, play it so that the root of the scale starts on the letter name of the scale you want to play.
For example, to play a C blues scale, find the note C on the sixth string (8th fret) and start the scale there.
It should be noted, however, that many guitarists get a lot of mileage out of the single position above, so get your feet wet creating guitar solos before you memorize a ton of scale positions. Now, you're ready to improvise. The concept seems simple enough; string together series of notes from the scale that sound pleasing together (these series of notes are often referred to as "licks"). Try doing this; it's harder than it sounds.
Now that you're comfortable with the blues scale, you'll want to play guitar solos along to some form of accompaniment. One of the more common things guitar players solo over is a 12 bar blues.The blues scale will definitely get you started with a solid scale to use for improvisation in almost any style of music. But now let's take that lesson to the next level by putting it to practice. It's important to know how to apply the guitar scales you practice playing. Find a detailed method to practice scales for improvisation here at http://www.guitarnoise.com/lesson/turning-scales-into-solos-part-9/.
There’s a very simple reason a lot of solos sound more like someone playing scales rather than solos and it all comes down to how you practice. Learn how to solo by learning how to practice soloing.
A scale is not, usually, a solo.
Take a moment to let that sink in before you gasp at how incredibly underwhelming (not to mention obvious) a statement this is. Take a second moment to get over the sarcastic replies that are filling your head as well.
And then think – how do you go about practicing solos? Many guitarists don’t really practice soloing at all. They practice scales and think that they are practicing solos. They will sit and work on getting their fingers to fly around on the fretboard until they are extremely proficient at it and then think that they are soloing. They aren’t. They’re just playing scales or sequences (or series, if you will – and more on that in a moment). Scales can certainly be used in solos and can be (and usually are) an important tool to create a good solo, but they are just one part of the big picture.
At their heart, the great solos we remember are like miniature songs, songs within songs, if you will. And part of what makes them both great and memorable is that they are sing-able. Or hum-able. They have melodies that stick in your head and you find yourself singing them or whistling them or playing air guitar while they’re running around in your brain. Scales are nice but not very exciting as melodies, unless you’re singing Do, Re, Mi or Joy to the World (the Christmas carol, not the “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” song).
Scales move dutifully from one note to the next and we tend to practice them in steady, even rhythms in order to work on our speed. For instance, if we were to work on the C major scale, we’d probably do something like this:
See? Nice and even eighth notes. Maybe we’ll work on sixteenth notes or even thirty-second notes. After all, speed is what we’re interested in, right?
Melodies are interested in phrases and we’ve discussed the importance of phrasing at many points in this series. Just what do we mean by “phrasing?” Phrasing is how a line of music breathes. Take even a simple descending scale, change up it’s timing a little bit and voila! You’ve the first line of the aforementioned Christmas carol:
Even if you don’t play it or sing it, you can see from the different notes (and I’ve written out the counting for you to help you see it) that this isn’t even. It’s full of long notes and short notes and gives both the player and the listener places to take a breath.
Unless you make a deliberate effort to include phrasing and melodies as part of your practice routine when it comes to soloing, your solos are going to sound like the scales you practice. How can they not, since that’s what you’re practicing?
To be fair, a good number of beginners do get this and so they start to vary their practice routine by playing “series” or “sequences” instead of straight scales. A “series” or “sequence” is a slight variation on a scale. You might play the first four notes in order and then back up two notes, like this:
But if you’re observant (and again, you don’t even need to hear this if you’re paying attention), you can see that these are all eighth notes and therefore are all even. This, then, becomes an exercise about speed and not about phrasing. And there’s the trap. If you’re interested, truly interested in solos as solos, at some point you have to stop thinking about speed enough to become a student of melody and phrasing.
And that’s actually very easy, but not in an “easy to practice with a set format” way. It becomes a matter of putting together little melodic bits either from the scales you already know and practice, or from the melodies you can hear in your head while you’re playing.
For example, here’s the descending Am pentatonic, positioned at the fifth fret:
And here’s a very simple, yet elegant blues-style phrase (in swing eighths, so it’s counted out for you) that is basically a slight, incredibly slight, variation on the last example:
The use of the triplet on the second beat, plus the skipping of a note (or two) of the Am pentatonic scale, plus the occasional reversal of direction makes this sound a lot more like melodic, which makes it sound more like a solo.An important lesson to understand on guitar along with scales is hand placement on the guitar. Take a look here at http://www.howtoplayguitarsolos.net/practice-and-warmup/hand-placement-%E2%80%93-the-overlooked-solo-necessity for hand placement ideas for your guitar improvisation.
When learning how to play guitar solos there are quite a few things that first come to mind; technique, speed, picking style for starters…but rarely is hand placement talked about. When I talk about hand placement here I’m referring to the ‘fretting hand’ and not the picking hand, although you could write a whole book on that one.
If you just play by feel and go with what seems comfortable you may stumble across the best way to do things, but you may also fall into some bad habits, or positions that don’t help you to play what you want to play. Once you get into these positions and you naturally go there it can be difficult to retrain yourself…difficult, but not impossible. Here we’ll take a look at what some different positions are and how they can be used in your playing. I’ll also point out some of the pitfalls of using certain techniques and how they can be corrected.
I also want to point out that there are no right or wrong ways to position your hands on the guitar, just ways that work and ways that don’t…
There are two main schools of thought around hand positioning:
Classical or Solo Position & Rock or Bending Position. These have been called many different names but the name itself is irrelevant, so we’ll just use these to illustrate the idea. After looking at these positions from a ‘fingers on the board’ approach, we can also look at the thumb position and find a way to get the result we’re after.
Classical Position – This is often called this because it’s taught as the only effective position on the classical guitar, and with good reason. When you’re playing mostly separate notes, scales, or anything that involves a lot of finger changing and movement (such as guitar solos), it helps to have the fullest access from your fingers and that’s what this position provides.
Technique – This is achieved by placing the thumb facing vertically in the middle of the back of the neck, thereby giving you greater access for your fingers on the fret board.
Rock Position – This is also an effective technique and one that feels more natural to play for a lot of people but it has its limitations, especially when learning how to play guitar solos. The advantage of this technique is getting a controlled grip and general control when doing any sort of bending or movement of the notes (you’ll notice a lot of blues players using the thumb over approach to get the controlled tone and maximized feeling from the notes). The disadvantage is the reduced finger control over faster moving passages such as scale runs etc…
Technique – To do this simply place your thumb further up toward the top of the back of the neck, to the point of gripping the neck like a club and forcing your thumb down for a greater level of control.
To get an idea of the difference in the finger control, start in the first position with your thumb in the center of the neck and move it up to the top – note how your fingers move on the front and how much reach you have in either position! You’ll soon see the advantages of both and if you combine the two in your playing it will give you greater control regardless of what you want to play.
There is one last thing to consider and that is the thumb angle. Some people recommend pointing the thumb along the neck and facing the headstock, try it with both positions and see how comfortable it is to play with, but I have to also point out that the thumb straight up is the most common practice.Every guitarist is going to recommend "solo secrets" for you. This is one of the reasons guitar solos have as much personality as they do; to be a successful guitar player, you need to develop your own personality in your improvisation. Here are a few trade secrets for the guitar solo at http://www.learn-acoustic-guitar.com/3-blues-guitar-soloing-secrets.
Running up and down a pentatonic scale is an easy way to get started playing blues guitar solos, but you soon realize that there’s more to it than that to create the sounds of blues players you listen to. Here are three secrets to help you extend your pentatonic skills and sound more like your blues guitar heroes.
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.With this information, your guitar solos should improve greatly. Don't be afraid to express yourself on the guitar; that's what the instrument is all about. Soloing on the guitar is one of the best ways to develop your personality as a player.
Have fun and stay tuned for more!
Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment