THIS Is The RIGHT Way To Follow A Chord Progression When You SOLO
Almost every guitar player that starts improvising will feel like their solos are directionless, boring, or just not in sync with what the music is doing.
That's because improvising is not "natural": it's a learned skill. Which means we can get better at it!
Indeed the good news is, there is one primary reason why so many guitar players have this issue.
There are of course countless different things you should work on to be a good improviser, but a massive component of why so many people feel this way about their playing comes down to one thing.
Outlining the chord progression.
Without outlining the chords, your solo won’t feel like it fits with the music, it won’t make sense melodically, and it won’t feel satisfying to listen to.
(if you are not outlining the chord progressions, then you are in a very real way not improvising on that backing track. You are just playing notes - not making music)
The issue that people have is: they think outlining the chord progression is an incredibly difficult, sophisticated skill that takes years to develop. Or at least, that's what they heard from "the internet" or AI or someone who should know better.
In reality, all it takes is a slight change in how you think about scales, and yes, a little bit of practice to set everything in.
Despite seeming like such a complicated concept, I can give you one simple thing to practice that will get you outlining the chords in no time. If you want to do that, watch the video linked below and I’ll explain how it all works!
Want to know more about scales, modes, melody, and soloing? Check out my Master of the Modes guitar course where I will teach you everything you need to know about scales and modes, the building blocks of melody!
Video Transcription
Hello Internet, so nice to see you! If you are beginning to improvise on guitar, you're gonna find two different approaches depending on what kind of guitar teacher you are following, okay? And those two approaches seem to be completely at odds with each other.
Some people will tell you that to improvise, you just need to take a pentatonic scale and start playing over the chord. This typically happens with blues or rock players. And that works. If you instead are with jazz players, they typically tell you that you have to play chord tones.
You have to play the notes of the chord that is playing in that moment in your solo. And that works too. The question is, which one of those two approach you should follow? And that's the interesting thing, because if you actually do things right, those two approaches are the same thing.
And I'm going to show to you exactly what that means, because a student asked me exactly that. How can I use chord tones in a pentatonic situation? And as I'm going to show you in a second, they are exactly the same thing.
Grab your guitar, follow along, because it's going to be a ride. And once we're done with this, you are going to play in a completely different way and they're going to sound much, much better. Follow me along here.
I'm trying to transition from the pentatonic boxes into chord tone soloing, not just for myself, but for my intermediate student. And I'm struggling because it requires such a different approach. And I'm trying to figure out what steps I need to take to kind of blend the two approaches seamlessly or just really take on chord tone soloing as a distinct thing that I can employ whenever I want.
Okay. Why do you say it is such a shift? I mean, it could be or it could be not. Okay, that's not a three question. I just want to understand how you're thinking so I can connect to that. Well, I think my ear is refined enough at this point that even if I'm just mindlessly shredding over the boxes in Pentatonic, I can find my way, and it sounds musical.
But when it comes to, you know, picking out the root 3.5 of the underlying chords, first you have to identify the chords in real time, and then you've got to make it sound musical. It seems really daunting.
What style are you playing again? Rock and metal. Okay. What kind of chord progressions are you playing over, usually? It depends. I mean, do you do a lot of 12-bar blues soloing? Yes, no? Not so much.
Not so much. Not so much. Occasionally it's Tom Hess backing tracks. Occasionally it's pop and rock songs in a cover band. So it kind of varies. You have different possible approaches here. But one simple approach is that other than thinking strict chord notes, let's think chord notes plus a couple of extra notes.
You see why in a moment. It may look more complex because you're like, now I have to hit the three chord notes and maybe I have the two, it's a lot. But you can think of it this way. Over every chord, over every major or minor triad, just play the pentatonic with the same name.
Over E minor, play an E minor pentatonic. Over a F, play an F major pentatonic. Over a G, play a G major pentatonic. Over a C, we can move. Make sense? Yep. Okay. Now, the challenge is to find them in the same position and not just jump up and down.
So it does require a little bit of searching around, but you know already the five pentatonic shapes. And you know them already in a few keys. So at the beginning, yeah, it may be a bit of a different way of thinking, so on.
But you get used to it. I'm going to take I'm going to take something like the popcorn progression, okay? Guys have ever heard this one? If you haven't heard this one, turn on the radio for 10 minutes.
And you will hear it. Here in North America, if you turn on a radio, there is one song like this, one song which is 12 blues based, and then one of those two again. That's what goes. That's what sells.
Inside here, you have all the pop you want. Taylor Zwift, it's here. So the first code is E minor. Play me something in an E minor pentatonic anywhere. Anything. And we all agree it fits, right? Now the next code is going to be a C major.
In that area, can you find a C major pentatonic? Take all the time you need. No, no, in the same area. It's around the 12 francs. Yeah. Box four, right? I think. I never know you guys number the boxes.
I never understood the numbering of the boxes. I just see them. I don't put letters, I don't put numbers, I don't put anything because it just confuses me. But anyway, it's probably box 4. It fits. G major pentatonic, which for the people who are paying attention, is the same as E minor.
And then D major pentatonic, or B minor, whatever. Could be here. Okay, it's not exactly chord tone soloing, because the pentatonic has five notes, and the chord has only three. But the pentatonic does contain the notes of the chord.
And you are so used to playing on the pentatonic that pretty much you're hitting the chord notes because most of the leaks you learn stop on the chord note one way or another. Right? So you're just switching pentatonic in your mind.
Now, this seems complicated, but in most songs, the pentatonic shift by only one note of difference. Because if you look at the E minor pentatonic and the C major pentatonic, the only note of difference is that a B becomes a C.
And if you look at the E minor pentatonic and G major at the same, okay, and the E minor pentatonic and then D major pentatonic, there's only one of the difference, the G becomes an F sharp. Okay, now if you cannot do this in your mind, because they're looking at me like, it's so easy for him.
Yeah, sure, 20 years of experience, of course it's easy. Oh man, that's okay. I'm not a genius. I just done this so many times. Okay, but if this doesn't come natural to you, just write the notes down.
Just find the pentatonic in the bass, put in box one, I guess, or whatever it is, or box one is the other one, I never know again. And then work it up to the position, and then just play those. If you stay in key, the pentatonic shift by only one note.
If you go out of key, they can shift by more. So let's try very slowly, improvising over this, very slowly. You don't have to play a lot of notes. Done it. That's great. Right? That's the idea. It's simple to explain.
Yeah, the implementation may be a bit, but it's simple to explain. As long as you stay over major and minor triads, it works every time. If you have dominant chord, it will still work. It will not work great, but it will work.
If I play a D7th chord, you can just play the D major pentatonic. It still works. Is the best option? No. But it works. If you start going half-diminish, alter the dominance, there are other options, but we can always discuss them in time.
But most songs you play are just major and minor triad, and learning to do that works. If the chord progression goes out of key, no, you're borrowing a chord from somewhere, okay? Doing this works every time.
And play something in E-major. Play me a few phrases in E-major. Okay, and then I shift to E minor, the QB minor, by playing a G chord. Now I play an E minor pentatonic, which is the same as G major.
Right, and then I come back to E major. Now get these. I'm gonna play an A major chord. So shift to an A major pentatonic. I'm gonna play an A minor chord. So shift to an A minor pentatonic. Back to the key major.
Okay, you don't even need to know why those cords are there. You don't need to know it's a borrow code, it's a secondary dominant, it's a Neapolitan. You don't need to know any of that. With the Pentatonic.
That works. I mean, did you sound good? Yes, yes. For him not knowing what we're doing, sorry. But for just playing a pentatonic, it sounds good. Do you need to know theory when you play? Well, you need to know this.
If you know more, you can do more. But you need to know surprisingly little to do that. Just a pentatonic in the same way. Happy? That's great. Fantastic. Thank you, Matt.