3 VITAL Tips To Make Your Guitar Solos LESS BORING
Are your guitar solos boring? Do you wish there was some magical way to make them… not boring?
Well, worry not, for I have not one, not two, but three ways that you can instantly un-borify your guitar solos.
First off, stop jumping around from one idea to the next for your entire solo.
I realize that as a guitar player, you are enslaved by the compulsion to constantly show how much you know and how many different things you can play (of course, I am the same…)
…but if you want people to listen and enjoy what you play, you should consider repeating the odd phrase from time to time so what you play becomes a little bit more memorable.
The real question is how exactly you should repeat what you play, so it’s not boring but engaging and interesting. Of course, you will find the details in the video below.
The second tip is… hold on, I think I forgot the second tip. Don’t you hate it when that happens? wink wink
Well, the good news is that there is a link below to a video about these three tips, and you can find the other two there!
P.S. The third tip is… no, seriously, watch the video.
Do you want more tips like this? What about 15 more tips like this? Well, I don’t have 15. I have 18. Yes you read that right, 18 more tips like this that you can get completely for free, in my pentatonic guitar solo eBook.
Video Transcription
Hello internet, so nice to see you! Today we’re gonna see three tips for better guitar solos. And let’s go into them immediately. The first one, the first one is this, a lot of people when they solo they think this way, they think I have my guitar scale. And I’m gonna improvise on the guitarist.
Which is not wrong per se. But since we all do these, okay, all the solos come out pretty much the same because we have the same thing you might. So let’s break out a little bit of the guitar scale, shall we, you should not think of the guitar as as your realm of possibility if you don’t think of it as everything you can do. Instead, you should think of the guitar scale as a bridge between two notes.
Let me explain. Start thinking not playing on a scale, not playing musical phrases, but start thinking open ports, I want to start from this note and they want to end on these other notes and forth. So let’s say I want to start from this note here from these A here. And I want to end up on these e up here. Okay, of course, of course, need to know a little bit your scales. So your notes, I’m not saying no.
But I’m not going to think you’re not going to think that that’s one possible way to bridge the gap between those two nodes. The idea is, I want to start here, I want to end up here. What can I do? Well, I could play only two notes, that’s something I could play another note in between. Or, or, okay, and you start doing these kinds of things is that slope, any effect to play two notes in between, or, or, and you can change order, but it will you can go okay, and then you start playing more notes.
Okay, you don’t have to go in a specific order. But you start moving around between those notes. And think of the scale as your stepping stones to get from one note to another, then pick another starting point and another ending point and then improvise this way to stop thinking of, I have my box and I want to fit inside the box and start thinking instead, I have a starting point, I have an ending point which could be really far on the guitar, it could also be really close, and then need to go from one to the other first, imagine those two points, then bridge the gap, you’re gonna create phrases that are way more original, then what you will do otherwise. And that’s tip number one.
The number two, once you have something you like, repeat it to many people when they improvise, keep going with an endless stream of new ideas, okay, and they play a little idea and they play something completely different. Something completely different.
And they play something completely different. And they’re solo sound boring, because they’re just a continuous stream of consciousness without rhyme or reason. Instead, duties play something and let’s say you like this, okay? It’s really not nothing special. It’s just okay, play the second time. And you have two choices, you can play it exactly as it is so or the second time, you can change the last note okay.
Okay, B is a strange word to put there, but it will work perfectly on this chord progression. Okay, just change the last note, okay? Every time you find something you like, every time you play, play a phrase and that little thing sounds good to you. Play it again and change the last note. Now of course, we will sit down and think about the theory behind it.
And eventually when I do that, and think that you want to land on a chord note or occasionally you want to land an unknown chord note and you want to play on the chord or off the chord or inside the scale or outside the scale. And we can have all these kinds of considerations to do To buy right now, just change the last note, just try just go by ear and after you play, think to yourself, did I like it or not, and then change accordingly.
Okay, we can always add more theory on top later right now let’s start to develop these kinds of spontaneous, okay, playing, you play something you like to play again, incidentally this play it again can go really fun because you could play the very same phrase on a whole chord progression. If as long as you change the last note, and like you were saying before, the last note is a note of the chord, okay, so in a blues progression.
I’m playing the same phrase over every single chord in this blues chord progression. But every time I end, the little phrase on a note of the chord, in the, in the chord progression, so these gives the this phrase a little bit of a difference. And so you can recycle this phrase throughout the throughout the chord progression. Now, in a real playing situation, I will not repeat the same sentence 12 times, okay, but I could repeat it four times, for instance, and it will work perfectly.
Okay. So after you how much you want to repeat. But Tip number two is if you find something you like, repeat it and change the last note. Tip number three, it’s not what you play. It’s how you play it. Okay, so you could have a perfect little phrase made of three or four notes this sounds great. Except that it sounds horrible because it just plays in play the notes plainly.
It was sound way better if you look within some phrasing so man, say Brad does life. Okay. Or you could play the same phrase here. Okay, his lie between all the notes. The idea is this, the notes are always the same, but how you play them if you slide into it or out of them if you bend into them if you play a hammer on or pull off any of those things, changes how it sounds.
And a lot of guitar solos are made with simple notes. But with good phrasing on top developing phrasing is part of guitar technique. It is because you need to learn how to do it, it’s not natural, okay, like many other things on the guitar, so you need to train it, but it’s fun.
So a very simple way of doing that is pick three notes, any three notes Okay, and then try to play those three notes and add something so for instance, let’s say I want to add slides into them, I could put a slide on the first note or on the second note or on the third note, maybe I can connect the second and the third note or maybe I can change the way I play those on different strings he’s like between the first and the second and maybe a slide and then come around.
Okay, the first note and then the second and the third. So everything is everything is lies now. Okay, then I can start thinking what if I use hammer on and pull off well I could pull off from the first note to the second node the feminine or take the fifth not normally the second note normally and hammer on the third. Okay. Take it again or just not pick it again.
Okay. It was good for so second, combine this life before or flop and then slide. The idea is to set some time in your practice schedule to do this.
These is guitar technique is not about speed. It’s not about dexterity is not about shredding, and I like shredding, but this is important too. And this is what make you sound good. So you spend some time I’m going to get us to do this. And you use a very simple musical phrase like right now my musical phrase was E, C, D, three notes always in the same order.
Always with the same timing, I’m not going to make them faster or low was lower, and just trying to see what happens when I add phrasing on top. So we have the three tips for better soloing. Tip number one, stop thinking about scales as boxes, and think about scales as bridges from one point to another of the fretboard and improvise thinking start from here and here.
Number two, when you play something you like, repeat it, and then change the last note and see how you like it. Number three, spend some time improving your phrasing is not what you play. It’s how you play it. If you liked this tip, and you want to know more about how to get your solos sound better.
I have an ebook called 18 tips to make your pentatonic solo sounds professional gonna appear now. And then go there, download it, it’s free. It’s a completely free eBook. It comes with video examples and I’m showing you everything in detail.
You can go through it in a very short amount of time and your playing is going to be better immediately. Get that free ebook. It’s free. Okay, and read it. I guarantee you’re going to be better because of that. This is Tommaso Zillio for MusicTheoryForGuitar.com And until next time, enjoy.