5 Easy Steps to Face Melting and Gut Busting Guitar Solos

I've been playing guitar a bit more often lately than I usually do, which has probably been sparked by a certain recent guitar purchase, but also by some spur of the moment late night jam sessions. My cousins Molly and Theresa visited us in Chicago this weekend, and on Saturday night they came over for some games, drinks, music and fun. We ended up playing a bunch of great songs to the wee hours of the night, and I learned that cousin Molly has the most beautiful voice! I had never heard her sing before. We had a total blast!!



(Cousin Molly and me)


I also learned that my brother Jack has learned how to solo on the guitar, sort of suddenly and unexpectedly. I was blown away and totally impressed! Reason being... and this traces back to August 2008 summer family vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks, I believe, when one day Jack and I were playing guitar and he asked how I learned to solo. I drew up a diagram for him of how I learned how to improvise. Well, it turns out that he took the diagram home and figured it out! Mind you, I think his piece of paper was probably wrinkled and spilled on by the time he got it home, but he absorbed it. I admire the persistance and love the feeling of having taught my brother something useful and fun.

This diagram (seen at the bottom of this blog) and the method I use to improvise on the guitar, which is really what I love doing, is really the aim of this blog.


I have to say that in some ways I feel like a hack or a cheat when it comes to soloing because, to me, improvisation and soloing can reduced to a few simple rules. It should be more difficult than that, but really it is not all that difficult to gain a level of proficiency. Of course, through theory it is easy to complicate things and expand on, but in order to play along to a song on the radio, or play the blues, you really only need to know a few things, and have confidence in knowing what you like to hear.


What I have found in talking to other guitarists is that most players visualize soloing differently, but many think of it in terms of the Penatonic Scale. Those who play will definitely recognize that scale, which is usually the first scale a guitar player will learn... it's really just a broken down blues scale and very simple to play. If you take all guitar solos ever played in Rock and Blues, I would say probably 75% plus of them are played exclusively in this scale, especially the blues. So, it is very possible to hold your own with that one scale.


However, the difference for me came when I wanted to expand through the whole neck of the guitar and know what notes would sound good everywhere, not just in one scale in one position. My, I guess you could call it "epiphany", came when I was playing in Three Degrees of Freedom after college... I was reading about music theory and scales and so forth and how the different scales fit together and I realized that I can break up the guitar into the different scales/modes that are relative to each other.


The most simple way I can describe this is by imagining a piano. There are black and white keys. Everyone knows Middle C. If you play the white keys from Middle C to the next C you are playing a C Major scale. In other words, if you play a white key anywhere on the piano, you are playing a note in the C Major scale. So, to play a simple solo for a song in C Major you just need to play any of the white notes and just resolve to (end on) the C. It's easy to expand and complicate things from here, but we won't get into that yet.


The different scales (or modes) are formed by just moving up a white note on the piano and playing all the white keys to the same note.


C Major/Ionian - C D E F G A B C
D Dorian - llllllllllllllD E F G A B C D


So, by moving up one note and staying on the white keys, you have a new scale called Dorian. The most important thing to note here is that all the notes are the same as the C Major scale, you are just starting and ending on the next note. So, in essence, C Major = D Dorian. Continue this trend up and you get Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian.


I hope I haven't lost you at this point... I'm just trying to empasize that all these ancient scales/modes are connected. I had never realized this before, and this realization perfectly translated to the guitar because the way the guitar is set up.


So, if you are interested in learning how to improvise on the guitar across the full length of the fingerboard, all you really need to do is learn the following five scales (you don't need to bother with the Lydian and Locrian). I have illustrated the five scales below. I chose the key of G because it is by far the most common.


Now, the guitar is set up perfectly for this because you only need to learn the patterns of the scales and learn them as positions, so if the song is in a different key then you only need to shift the patterns to the new key. It is basically the same concept as Barre Chords.


So, when I listen to a song on the radio, I just play up and down the low E string until I find what key the song is in, then determine if it is in a Major or Minor key (it can be in any of the other keys also but these are by far the most common), and that's it, we are off to the races.


This method really simplified the guitar for me and I recommend it for anyone learning to play the guitar. If you are interested in learning more about this let me know, or have any questions, I would love talk music with you!! Rock on!!

In the Key of G Major

(All root G notes in red)

G Major (1st Position)
E----------------------------------------------2--3--5--
B----------------------------------------3--5-----------
G------------------------------2--4--5-----------------
D---------------------2--4--5--------------------------
A------------2--3--5-----------------------------------
E---2--3--5--------------------------------------------

A Dorian (2nd Position)
E---------------------------------------------5--7--8-
B------------------------------------5--7--8----------
G---------------------------4--5--7-------------------
D------------------4--5--7----------------------------
A------------5--7-------------------------------------
E---5--7--8-------------------------------------------

B Phrygian (3rd Position)
E-------------------------------------------------7--8-10--
B---------------------------------------7--8-10------------
G--------------------------------7--9----------------------
D-----------------------7--9-10----------------------------
A-------------7--9-10--------------------------------------
E---7--8-10------------------------------------------------

D Mixolydian (4th Position)
E-------------------------------------------------------10-12---
B-------------------------------------------10-12-13------------
G---------------------------------9-11-12-----------------------
D----------------------9-10-12----------------------------------
A-----------9-10-12---------------------------------------------
E--10-12---------------------------------------------------------

E Aeolian/Minor (5th Position)
E----------------------------------------------------------12-14-15--
B----------------------------------------------12-13-15--------------
G----------------------------------11-12-14--------------------------
D--------------------------12-14--------------------------------------
A--------------12-14-15----------------------------------------------
E--12-14-15----------------------------------------------------------