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Manuel is a passionate, driven, and techsavvy AV technician, artist and music composer with over ten years of experience, specializing in the captivating world of music and entertainment.

Manuel is an expert in creating soundtracks for short films, feature films and video games.

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Guitar Solo

Guitar Solo (Photo credit: P-J-TRASH)

Do you struggle to create guitar solos that sound like genuine music rather than just a “combination of guitar licks”? Have you spent significant time searching for countless guitar exercises, new scales, and guitar licks online, only to realize later that these resources are NOT making you a better lead guitarist?

Guitarists who try to make their guitar solos more inventive using the approach above often become frustrated with their slow progress and start losing faith in their potential to become exceptional guitarists. They may even begin to believe the widespread myth that their ability to create impressive guitar solos is limited by their level of natural talent.

Fortunately, it IS possible for anyone to significantly improve their lead guitar soloing skills with the right strategy. If you haven’t achieved this goal yet, I want to explain the most common reasons why guitar players struggle with creating truly GREAT guitar solos and provide you with steps you can take now to significantly enhance your lead guitar playing.

The truth is that many guitar players focus on entirely the wrong things when trying to improve their lead guitar soloing and improvising skills. Most guitarists assume that the solution to their guitar soloing problems lies in learning more “new” skills (advanced soloing concepts, new guitar licks/scales/arpeggios, etc.). In reality, merely acquiring new musical skills will not (by itself) make your lead guitar playing better, just as having a variety of ingredients in the kitchen will NOT make you a “better” cook. While possessing numerous musical skills gives you more options to choose from, these skills will NOT “enhance your ability” to create great guitar solos unless and until you know how to “integrate” them to make the best musical choices possible in any musical situation. For the vast majority of musicians, it is this lack of ability to fluently APPLY and INTEGRATE their existing skills that prevents them from mastering Music Production - Improve Your Sound - The rise in popularity of work-from-home studios has significantly impacted the music production landscape in recent years, driven by the increasing availability of tools and technology. This growth has led to the emergence of mobile recording rigs, making it possible to record full band performances anywhere. While one might anticipate a wealth of high-quality music,… the art of lead guitar soloing.

Now that you understand more about why conventional methods of improving your guitar solos are ineffective, here are some specific steps you should take to begin integrating your current lead guitar playing skills on a deeper level and significantly improve your guitar solos in the process.

Master The Guitar Fretboard Thoroughly – True mastery of the guitar neck goes much deeper than merely being able to locate a specific note/fret on the guitar. To truly navigate your way around the guitar, you should be able to play all the scales and chords used in your style of music everywhere on the neck, and be able to combine these shapes fluently.

Legendary guitar players – such as Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Randy Rhoads, and Eddie Van Halen – all possessed this exceptional awareness of scales and chord shapes on the fretboard. This skill enabled them to improvise incredible guitar solos effortlessly in any key without “getting lost.” Conversely, guitarists who struggle with making their lead guitar solos sound like music often lack this skill and become stuck soloing in the same 1-2 positions every time they play lead guitar. No matter how many scales you actually know, if you cannot fluently play them across the guitar neck, you will have a VERY difficult time using them creatively in your lead guitar soloing.

Master Aural Skills (Train Your Ear To The Fullest) – Most guitar players (even the rare few who actually practice ear training exercises regularly) don’t have a well-defined understanding of what it truly means to “have a good ear for music.” It’s commonly believed that ear training is all about “being able to identify any interval, chord, or scale” after hearing it. While this skill IS “a part” of having a good ear, in reality, ear training plays a much deeper role in your lead guitar playing. At the highest level, aural skills are “the link” between your musical skills (guitar technique, music theory What Is A Musician? - For some individuals, the role of a musician may be difficult to comprehend. They may struggle to understand: 1 - the nature of a musician's talent or job, 2 - why musicians work around the clock, and 3 - the concept of a fanbase and the boundaries musicians set with fans. Let's delve into each… knowledge, phrasing, mastery of scales and chords, etc.) that enable them to work TOGETHER to create the most expressive guitar solos possible.

Master musicians use their ears to imagine the music they want to hear and guide their hands to produce that sound on the instrument as quickly and naturally as speaking your thoughts during a conversation. Without good aural skills, your musical skills will only function in isolation, and your ability to create impressive guitar solos will remain limited (more on this below).

Create Music With Your Mind Instead Of Your Hands – Most guitarists approach the process of lead guitar soloing in a mechanical way by “playing scales over chords.” After determining the key of the chord progression, many musicians simply start soloing by running through familiar scale shapes and licks. Essentially, their mind goes on autopilot, and the “creating” is done with the hands.

In contrast, great lead guitar players rely on their ears and their mind to imagine what they want to hear before playing a single note and use their hands (guitar technique) along with their music theory knowledge, mastery of the fretboard, and other musical skills to express what the mind wants to hear. Although they also end up “playing scales over chords,” the overall level of creativity An Artist Portrait (Part Two) - This is the Part Two (and final part) of the true life story as artist written by Frank V. Cahoj for our Weblog. (Part One) An Artist Portrait (Part Two) I give an unbelievable amount of credence to these two early periods in my life: one of everlasting creation, one of analysis and disillusionment. The… and expression achieved is much higher because all their musical tools/skills are integrated together as one “creative whole.”

Although the steps above happen very quickly (and almost always occur on a subconscious level), this kind of thought process is crucial for creating truly excellent guitar solos.

The most important point I want you to understand is that most of what truly “creates” a great guitar solo must be done with your mind and your ears. This is entirely different from the thought process of inexperienced guitarists, whose guitar solos are merely an attempt to “fill up space/silence with notes.”

Continuously Work On Your Guitar Phrasing – Many lead guitar players constantly search for “notes to play” but overlook finding better ways of HOW to play (phrase) those notes. Good guitar phrasing involves more than applying an occasional bend or vibrato to a note. When I teach my students how to master guitar phrasing, I show them that this skill consists of “macro” and “micro” level components. “Macro” level phrasing refers to how each phrase fits into the big picture of the lead guitar solo and the song itself (much like words flow in a conversation). “Micro” level phrasing deals with ornamentation applied to individual pitches of the phrase. It’s essential to understand the difference between the two components and have effective methods for practicing both of these areas of phrasing.

Get Regular Feedback On Your Lead Guitar Soloing From More Experienced Guitarists Or From A Guitar Teacher – Unlike improving your guitar speed, where you can measure your progress in a tangible way, enhancing your lead guitar playing is a relatively “intangible” skill.

This means two things:

  1. It is quite challenging to become aware of specific flaws in your lead guitar soloing if you don’t know what aspects you should be listening for.
  2. It is also difficult to determine whether your guitar solos are genuinely improving and which areas of your lead guitar playing still need work.

You can make the fastest progress when you have your guitar solos assessed by a guitar teacher who can not only point out specific shortcomings in your guitar playing but also create an effective lesson plan to help you overcome the particular challenges that are holding you back from creating truly amazing guitar solos.

Now that you understand more about what it takes to improve your lead guitar playing, you should be excited as you realize that your musical goals are entirely within your control to achieve. If you begin to implement the strategies I have outlined above, your lead guitar soloing skills will start to improve rapidly.

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