hello, i want simple help on how to make my own guitar solos and riffs. can you also help me in reading guitar tablature? it would help if you did not redirect me to another website for most are confusing..
Learn your scales. Start with the pentatonic, blues, and major scales. When you start learning you'll find that there is a root position based on the sixth string and that the patterns are movable. The below image is the scale pattern at the root position. It starts on the top string on the 5th fret or the A note. This is the A minor pentatonic scale with the blues notes circled in red. If you play the blue circled notes you are playing the A minor pentatonic scale. If you play the blue and red circled notes you are playing the A minor blues scale.
Play this scale pattern over a blues or rock song in the key of A. This pattern will also work on a song in the key of C. Then, this pattern becomes C major pentatonic - the relative major to A minor. (All you music majors out there feel free to correct me. My theory chops are a little loose.)
There are other patterns in the scale. They don't look like this but they use the same notes.
"Movable" means that if you move the pattern two steps down to G (3d fret on the sixth string) you will be playing the G minor blues. If you move the pattern up to C, (8th fret 6th string), well hopefully you'll get the picture.
When you start playing, play with feeling. Try to always make that first note sound good. Develop your ear. Try to emulate your favorite guitarists.
You're asking for a lot of information to be given to you in a blog. Your best resources are a teacher, class, a friend that plays, or webpages. Unless you are a prodigy, it takes years (or at least a lot of months) of practice and learning to play the guitar.
I'd like to add the site ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs! . There you can get tabs for any song you want to learn, this may not leave you a soloist, but will help tremendously with reading tabs as there are many versions of the same song, so you can sort through the harder ones to find tabs more suitable to your playing level. Also, many of the worlds best guiatarists play by ear, and learned their idols solo's by picking them out one by one and putting the peices together, and by learing other's solo's you can kind of 'get the idea' of progression and regression through scales. The best scale to start learning is the Pentatonic, also known as the blues scale. Use the fat E string and only go to the next string up, then right back down. Then venture another two up, and so on, until you can walk up the strings and down the strings. Find places to pause and bend the string for vibrato, and incorporate notes higher or lower on the neck for effect. Most importantly, practice practice practice. Check out Logicalleadguitar.com too, and sign up for the newsletter and you'll recieve tabs and scales to practice, also techniques for bettering your own personal style. Keep playing, and good luck to you..
Here is the rest of the A minor pentatonic scale with the blues notes circled in red. Note that the A minor pentatonic and it's relative major the C major scale are equivalent to the white keys on a piano, minus the B and F note. There are five notes in the scale, hence the name pentatonic - five notes. The blues note is the flatted 5th - D sharp and E flat are the same note.
Remember that you can move these scales up and down the neck to change keys, and that the key is found in the root pattern as outlined in my previous reply.
I know you said you want to make your own guitar solos, but it helps tremendously to learn from the masters. I found this youtube that is spot on. YouTube - Stairway to Heaven solo guitar lesson
The Stairway to Heaven solo happens to be an A minor blues riff.
great! thank you guys! i also have one question though, when doing soloes by scales, how do you pass from one scale to the other like if a song has the note progression D G A Bm, when doing a solo if i wanted to pass from scale A to G and so on.
If you would like to progress easily from one key or scale to another, then a really easy way to do it would be to use a seventh chord to progress to the key or scale that you would like to go to.
For instance, C7 chord progresses to the key or scale of F and G7 progresses to the key or scale of C and so on.
If you would like to go from the scale of A Major to G Major then adding an D7 chord will do the trick.
ropeboarddanny agrees: ok i see, so would i have to use the c7 scale or chord to progress? or both?
Hi again, ropeboarddanny!
You could use the C7 chord, scale or a combination of both to progress to the key of F Major. It all depends on how the melody has evolved in order to arrive at the new key or chord.
The important thing is to use the dominant seventh chord or scale of the key to which you want to progress. If you would like some examples, I can show you with piano music.
The use of the dominant seventh chord or scale of the key or chord that you would like to go to isn't the only way to get there, but it's the easiest way to explain and for a student to figure out how to do it.
This is how I make my own leads on guitar.
1. Play a set of chords, like G major, C major, A minor and then D major.
2. Give it an order on how and when u'll change the chord.
3. Give a rhythm to the chords. make some changes to make it sound beautiful.
4. Record the whole stuff.
5. Play it on the system and play leads on the guitar with it.
This is how I work on the guitar.
The music should come out from urself, and the way of showing it to others, is an instrument.
Linear Mode
