How to Solo on Guitar - Practical Tips and Tricks

[Leaf]

Old trick... Oscar Peterson is renouned for it:


Hum the line. Then play it.


That's it... hum a phrase, then figure it out. With practice and time, you'll be able to play anything you hum, as you hum it. I can't... I"m like half way there ..but damn it works great, and it seems to produce much more lyrical lines than trying to waddle through a pattern.

[pegor]

I don't know sh*t but... After practic'n the scale that applies to your style in several positions up and down the neck, improv solos come pretty easily by ancoring you index finger on the root note of the key and then just screw around with plucking the root in time and occasionally using the ring and pinky finger voice a few other notes in the scale (always with the root/index finger ancored) . The idea is to focus on coming back to the root note after a few note excursion on the scale. TADA instant phrase with tension/resolution. Oh - and play the scale over the tonic chord threwout the whole chord progression of the song.

I think Claption sorta does this, he may switch to ancoring on the 5th sometimes too.

[Lunkhead]

I picked up some ideas along the way somewhere that have helped me, but may or may not be to the tastes of other players:

1. Think about phrasing. Break your solo down into different sections (eg. a whammy bar section, a pentatonic only section, a crazily fast ascending riff section, a simple melodic section, etc.). Break your solo down into lines/riffs, and into complementary pairs of riffs, etc.

2. To make your phrasing and melodies a little more interesting, try to avoid starting them on the first beat of the bar. Come in a little early or a little late sometimes, to make the solo flow together. Also, try to avoid starting/ending phrases/lines/melodies on the root note of the key you're in, start/end somewhere else in the scale.

[adam b]

What lunkhead said.

The first thing is to know the scale you're going to play the solo over. Make sure you know EVERY fret on the guitar that will be involved, and get comfortable moving between them.
Next, play a simple lead line over the chord progression you'll be soloing over, mix it up a bit. After that just go absolutely sick. Start off by shredding the fuck of out it - pick as fast as you can, 16th or 32th notes if you can, slowly bending a single note while picking super fast, then fretting a different note for each pick stroke. Switch to trills/hammer-ons and slides and from that go into long, mournful notes, played slowly and with lots of bends, maybe throw in a few hammer-ons/pull-offs in between. Try fingertapping if you can, slowly at first to emphasise jumping between high and low notes, etc, then do some face-melting bits. Throw in harmonics. Plenty of them. The natural, obvious harmonics (5,7,12th frets) are cool when piled with distortion and allowed to ring out while you play other notes; those near the 2/3/4th frets are a bit harsher but do well as a transition between a soft section and a harder one, and pinch harmonics are very in-your-face no matter what fret they would represent, just because of their initial attack.
I haven't learnt to sweep pick yet but I imagine that would go down well in a silly solo. Palm-mute palm-mute palm-mute. Learn how you can cary the sound of your palm muting with pressure on teh strings and how far from the bridge your hand is. Pick at different points on the string, from right near the bridge saddle to where the neck starts and incorporate the different sounds to add texture.
Use the whole neck, not as in play every note in the scale, but try something like this - pick the open low e string while palm-muting and hammer on the next two notes in the scale, repeating for the next two strings, then pick the a string (no palm-mute), hammering on to the next note in your scale. Do a pinch harmonic there, followed by a harmonic over the fifth fret and let ring. Pick the fifth fret of the d string and slide up to the 12th fret, then ascend in your scale onto the highest available note on your guitar. Slide down from the d string 12th fret to the seventh, then also fret the g string at seven, and trill onto 9th fret (g string) while playing both strings. Doing something like that allows you to cover a lot of different tones while still playing roughly the same notes - it makes things less boring. If you can play that sequence within about ten seconds, it'll be enough to wow the audience and people who play guitar - audience loves to see you covering most of the neck, and guitarists will see that you can use a number of techniques together. After playing stupidly fast, you might want to go into some bendy bits or play staccato.
Stir in some sugar, heat on high and you're ready to go....
But seriously, try every technique you can and learn new ones as you go. Test your whole palette on a song, then decide what's appropriate and play around with that. I tend to play hardcore/grunge/rock sort of stuff so my solos will often go all-out, but I change things up if I'm playing a different style. Hard and fast songs don't need a face-melting solo over the top, just as much as a slow song can have really fast trills and other licks thrown in. Don't forget that effects will really change the character of your solo as well.

My last word on this: don't play all the time. The silent gaps are just as important as the notes you play. Staccato bursts really add to songs as well.

[mc_wino]

learn that mixolydian scale brother. that scale is the BOMB!

[jeff robertson]

1. Learn one or two of the 5 pentatonic patterns really well

Wtf? There's FIVE of them? I'm 33 and I've been playing pentatonic patterns since I was 12, and I only know 2.. what have I missed?

Also, how did this thread from 2006 get revived?

[Märk]

Old trick... Oscar Peterson is renouned for it:


Hum the line. Then play it.


That's it... hum a phrase, then figure it out. With practice and time, you'll be able to play anything you hum, as you hum it. I can't... I"m like half way there ..but damn it works great, and it seems to produce much more lyrical lines than trying to waddle through a pattern.

This is the best advice given in this thread yet. It's good to know the theory, but once you do, forget about it, and play what you hear in your head.