Soloing Basics

Improvising

Three Basic Approaches to Soloing

Playing a song and performing the original solo note-for-note
Playing a song and improvising a solo
A combination of the previous two approaches, where you perform key sections of the original solo, but improvise embellishments to infuse your own personal touch

For now, the first approach does not concern us, as you don't have to understand what you are playing when you are copying a solo note-for-note.

However, if you wish to improvise your own solos, you need to understand some basic concepts to ensure that your solos sound good!

Two Approaches to Improvising

Key Center or Modal Approach

Improvising using the notes of the scale that corresponds to the key of the music, eg; if you are in the key of Am, you would improvise using the notes of the A Natural Minor scale to create melodies - little consideration is given to the underlying harmony. This approach is effective when the harmony doesn't change very much, or changes very quickly.

Playing the Changes

At any given time, you are aware of, and addressing, the underlying chords/harmony. You will still improvise using scales, but will target different chord tones over the changing harmony. This process is a little more challenging, as you have to keep track of the chord changes as you are playing, but it does help your solos to sound more "deliberate" and professional. A bonus application of this approach is that it makes it much easier to "address" chords that are not diatonic - we'll discuss this further at another time.

The following songs regularly populate "greatest solo" lists, and each of them feature solos where the guitarist "plays the changes" and addresses the chord changes by targeting chord tones;

David Gilmour - Comfortably Numb

Jimmy Page - Stairway to Heaven

Don Felder & Joe Walsh - Hotel California

Tension & Resolution

Music exploits the principle of tension and resolution to keep it interesting. Too much resolution is boring and too much tension is difficult to listen to. A skilled soloist is able to find a balance that keeps the listener engaged!

Addressing the Harmony (Chords)

To "play the changes" we must "address the harmony", which requires us to always be aware of what chord we are currently playing over, then selecting corresponding notes to fit with that chord.

Chord Types & Families

I break chords into three basic groups or families; Major, Minor, Dominant

Dominant is the "halfway house" between Major and Minor!

Triads (Three Note Chords)

The simplest chords are three note chords called Triads.

*Note - Power Chords only contain two notes - the third of the chord is omitted, which means it sounds neither major or minor.

The most common Triads are major and minor chords. Each note in a chord is called a Chord Tone.

The simplest way to "address" chords is by playing notes from the corresponding Triad over them.

Triad (Three Note) Arpeggios

When we play the notes of a chord one-at-a-time, rather than simultaneously, it is called an Arpeggio. Arpeggios are comprised entirely of Chord Tones and are arranged on the fretboard in recurring order. We can use the notes of an Arpeggio to create melodies and the notes will always sound like they belong, because all of the notes are in the underlying chord. Arpeggios are a great way to "outline" a chord.

Chord Tones sound resolved - they just "work" - they are safe notes that always sound good. Ending a lick or phrase on a chord tone will make it sound complete/finished.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Chord Tone Demo.mp3

However, because all of these notes are in the chord, we are not introducing any tension - our melodies can sound a bit safe and boring!

Pentatonic (Five Note) Scales

Triads contain three notes, but Pentatonic scales contain five notes, giving us two additional notes that we can use to add some tension to our solos! This can help to make things much more melodically interesting.

You can play an A minor Pentatonic scale over an Am chord, just as you can use an A major Pentatonic scale over an A major chord.

Each Pentatonic scale simply adds two notes to the basic Triad! Effectively, of the five notes now available to us, three sound great, leaving only two notes that we have be careful with.

Scale Tones & Chord Tones

When we use Pentatonic scales, we need to be aware of the different roles the notes have;

Chord Tones are notes that are only in the chord/arpeggio.

Scale Tones are notes that are in the scale, but not in the chord/arpeggio.

Scale tones are a great way to introduce some tension, by adding notes that are not part of the chord. They provide us with more melody options. Scale tones are a great way of "connecting" different chord tones.

The following diagrams illustrate the Chord/Scale relationship between an Am chord and the A minor Pentatonic Scale.

A Minor Pentatonic Scale, highlighting the Triad Chord Tones

There is always at least one Chord Tone on each string of a Pentatonic Scale. This is a simple little exercise to get you used to targeting these Chord Tones.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Minor Pentatonic Scale.mp3

Connecting Chord Tones - Branching Out

Below are some simple licks that "branch out" from different Chord Tones, illustrating ways that you can create your own phrases by connecting notes of the scale. Each of these licks resolves to a Chord Tone.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Am .mp3

Lick Variations

The following examples demonstrate how you can create variations of a basic lick, just by changing the chord tone that you use to resolve the idea. These licks were created using Lick 15 from the examples above as a starting point.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Am 15a-15e.mp3

The Blues Scale

The Blues Scale is a six note scale. It is exactly the same as the Minor Pentatonic scale, but it also includes the b5, which is also called the blue note.

Six notes gives us even more melodic possibilities, but it also means we have to be more careful! Half of the notes are Chords Tones and half of the notes are Scales Tones, so you need to be deliberate about how you end your phrases. If you leave it to chance, it will be a 50/50 that it will sound good.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Blues Scale.mp3

Blues Licks

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Am Blues Licks.mp3

Major Chords and the Major Pentatonic

A Major Pentatonic Scale, highlighting the Triad Chord Tones

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Major Pentatonic Scale.mp3

Dominant 7th Chords

Seventh chords are four note chords - they are more "complex" sounding than Triads.

A Dominant 7th chord is a Major Triad with a note added, the b7.

Because a Dominant 7th chord contains a Major Triad, we can use the Major Pentatonic scale to play over it.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Major Pentatonic Scale over Dom7.mp3

Any Major Pentatonic licks we can play over a Major chord will work over a Dominant 7th chord also.

The Dominant 7th Arpeggio

A shortcoming of the Major Pentatonic scale is that it doesn't contain the b7 found in the chord. To overcome this, we can use a Dominant 7 arpeggio, which contains all of the Chord Tones.

As discussed previously, Arpeggios work great, but they can sound a bit safe and boring because they don't provide much tension.

A popular approach to give us more melodic choice is to combine the Dominant 7 Arpeggio with the corresponding Major Pentatonic scale.

These notes combined provide us with four Chord Tones and two Tension notes (Scale Tones). This combination of notes is actually just one note short of a Mixolydian scale.

The Mixolydian Mode

The Mixolydian Mode is a 7 note scale that works perfectly over Dominant chords. The note we have added, the 4th, is the one we have to be most cautious of - it is a very tense note! You can also look at the Mixolydian scale as being a normal Major scale with a b7, just like a Dominant 7 arpeggio is a Major triad with a b7.

Blues Melodies over Dominant Chords

Rock music developed out of Blues music. The Blues influence permeates the melodies, harmonies, phrasing, structure, lyrics and imagery of Rock music. Because of this, we are accustomed to hearing characteristic melodies derived from the Blues scale against Dominant chord harmonies.

Tweak the Third - Hammer-Ons and Slides

An essential component of the Blues sound is the juxtaposition of the minor third (b3) of the Blues scales against the major third of the Dominant 7th chord.

In fact, Blues vocalists will sing the third somewhere between the minor and major third, This microtonal "tweak" of the note is a big part of the yearning, mourning blues sound!

Many instruments, such as the piano, cannot perform these microtonal "in-between" notes, so they approximate the sound/effect by playing both notes! The Minor Third is almost always followed by the Major Third - it is very rare to hear this idea performed the other way round.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Blues Melodies 1-5.mp3

Tweak the Third - Microtonal Bends (1/4 Step Bends)

An advantage that the guitar has over many other instruments is that the strings can be bent slightly sharp or flat. These in-between pitches allow us to more closely emulate Blues singers, introducing a more "vocal" and expressive quality to our licks.

The following extract is the vocal melody of the Howlin' Wolf song Spoonful, performed on the guitar, in the key of A. Note that the C notes are bent slightly sharp, creating a bluesy, soulful sound. Remember this idea works over Dominant chords, or Major Triads and Power Chords used in place of a Dominant chord - it works because we are so used to hearing this idea in Blues music. However, this idea generally doesn't sound great over Minor chords, or Major chords that are a substitute for a Dominant chord.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Spoonful Lick.mp3

The following licks are the same as the ones we looked at before, but have been modified to "tweak" the Minor Third by bending it slightly sharp.

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Tweak Licks.mp3

Now that we have begun experimenting with this Bluesy approach, let's take it further and investigate combining the A7 arpeggio and the A Blues scale together. One of the cool things about this concept is that we can introduce some really interesting Chromatic ideas!

Rockstar Guitar Soloing Basics Blues Scale & Dom7 Arp.mp3

And finally, if we combine A Mixolydian with the A Blues scale, we end up with a nine note scale that provides us with many options to create Tension and Release. Experiment with these notes and see how far you can take the concept - as long as you resolve your phrases to a one of the green Chord Tones (especially on a strong beat), it should work!

Mixolydian Function

It common in Rock music to hear Dominant 7th chords reduced to Major triads or even Power Chords, especially if the there is a lot of overdrive being used. However, these chords are still functioning as Dominant chords, so we can use the Mixolydian scale to improvise over them, and indeed, if we are are careful, we can also utilise the Blues scale.

Identifying Major and Power chords functioning as Dominant chords is beyond the scope of this article, however you can find out about both the theory, and example of these types of chord progressions on the following pages;

Rock Harmony

Mixolydian Progressions

Changing Key Exercise

A great way to hear the differences between these three main sounds (Major, Minor, Dominant) is to practice changing between parallel keys!

The following backing track loops between 4 bars of A Minor, 4 bars of A Major, then 4 bars of A Dominant - you have to change key/scale every 4 bars!

Rockstar Guitar Backing Tracks in A - Minor Major Dominant.mp3

Soloing Over Changes

In the example, we were actually Soloing over the Changes; selecting the correct scale to fit with the chord that was playing. This is one of the most valuable skills a soloist can have. If you want to look into this more, click on the above heading!

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