Title: How To Write a Guitar Solo
Tags: how to write a guitar solo
Blog Entry: Another article from Wiki How...So you've been playing guitar for a little while now and you want to be able to write a solo instead of just learning solos from other songs. Well in this article I will give you steps to become a real lead guitarist. Steps Learn a scale. A scale is a set of notes that can all correspond to each other to make something relatively melodic. Pentatonic scales are generally the easiest and most versatile scales to learn. There are many free websites you can find that have scale charts. Practice the scale. Play the scale up and down. Don't try to play it fast! You will improve much quicker by playing it very slowly for 20 minutes than trying to play it as fast as you can for hours. Make sure you play it cleanly with out any dead notes or screw ups (by the way, the key to playing fast is being able to pick quickly and accurately. Your fretboard hand is probably already fast enough to keep up with your picking hand). Learn the notes on your fretboard. I'm sure if you're just starting to play guitar then you've probably been trying to avoid learning notes, but there is really no way around it when learning to properly solo. If you learn which notes are which then you can always solo to any song, by simply staying within the key of the song. Play the notes on beat. Your solo will not sound even relatively close unless you're playing to the rhythm of a song or beat. Invest in a metronome or just find one on the Internet. Play a note of the scale on each beat. With time you can speed it up or use eighth notes (which is when you play a note on and in between each beat). Find the right note scale to use. Usually the first note of a song is the key you should be playing your scale on. Solos aren't just a random assortment of notes in a scale, but rather they are composed of a quick, precise and melodic succession of scalar intervals. Make sure you take some time to experiment with different intervals - knowing what fits in a solo and what doesn't will make your solos sound a whole lot better. Practice improvising. Improvising can help you find your own "sound". Try to play something different every time but if you can't then it won't matter that much (if you try different shapes and patterns each time you're just increasing your flexibility in soloing). You can learn guitar licks like sustained bend, harmonic, palm mute, etc. to give a unique sound to your leads. You can also try recording a humming/singing solo that you improvise with your voice, and try to play it on the guitar afterwards. It probably makes the way from thought to playing shorter. Tips Practice is the key word. Learn as many scales as you can, that's what expands your knowledge of solos and give you more to work with. Practice exercises, which you should be able to find all over the internet. Note that under a teacher your skills will bloom faster and more beautifully. It is not absolutely necessary, but it helps A LOT. I've tried self-study as well as being taught, and you can take my word for it. The key to playing fast is being able to pick quickly and accurately. Your fretboard hand is already fast enough to keep up with your picking hand. Learn different picking techniques such as Alternate picking, Economy picking, Tremolo picking, and Sweep picking. A quick and easy way to find what note scale to use is to just pluck the top E string (assuming you're in standard tuning) and slide your finger up the neck and stop when it sounds like the note in the song is the same as the one you're playing. (You should be able to make out what I'm talking about once you learn a scale.) Learn the different modes (Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Aeolian, and Locrian). Try to play a solo to any song you can. I find myself improvising to all songs even on the commercials when watching TV. It's also possible to use notes other than those within the scales, just make sure that these are not long and drawn out, because if so, they will clash with the key. Remember that subtleties such as bending, sliding, and vibrato are as important as your choice of notes. Many guitarists never stop moving their strings in one way or another. Do not neglect little techniques like vibrato, pitch bends and slides - these are universal for almost all guitar solos, as they give solos a little extra flavor; you won't hear many solos out there that are restricted to playing just the notes without any of these techniques - that would make a solo sound pretty mechanical. If you are soloing off a blues scale try soloing to a backing track. You may be able to find some on Youtube. A good way to write a start to a solo is to simply replay the instrumental hook from the rest of your song (assuming there is more) in a different octave. Many solos are comprised of this strategy, usually by playing the hook somewhere past or around the twelfth fret. If you really want to take your soloing to an amazing level click here now! Article provided by wikiHow , a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Write a Guitar Solo . All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license .
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