Technique, theory, taste and feel are the key ingredients in any guitar solo – work on these elements and you will play better, more expressive leads
There's no messing around with this tab and video lesson: it’s time to workshop some lead guitar ideas and get your solos spotlight-worthy
Welcome to our feature centred on playing better solos. In it we aim to identify core techniques and soloing concepts with a view to supercharging your vocabulary.
We have split our 15 examples into three sections, each with five examples. The first section is based around technique. Section two is more music theory-based and the third section concentrates on taste and feel.
Each example is four bars long and there’s a two-bar drum break to allow you time to prepare for the next example. As an added extra there are two 16-bar jam solos to learn, again with a corresponding backing track.
The jam solos will help you to contextualise what you have worked on, and also provide a canvass to come up with your own ideas. We have linked and adapted the examples to create functioning jams so you can see how smaller bits of vocabulary can be pieced together to create a real-world solo.
To keep things simple all of the examples are in the key of C. We have catered for both major and minor soloing so the main scales in use are C minor pentatonic (C-Eb-F-G-Bb) for the C minor examples and jam, and C major pentatonic (C-D-E-G-A) for the C major examples and jam. The ideas have been notated with a C major or C minor key signature so you can clearly see the various note choices and chord/scale relationships.
The main focus of this feature is to work on enhancing various articulations and embellishments, but it’s good to be mindful of using the correct major and minor pentatonic scales in just the right places to fit the underlying chords.
Some of the many ways we can add interest to the notes and phrases include string bending, sliding into notes, various types of harmonics, finger vibrato, and whammy bar vibrato.
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There’s also whammy bar manipulation, including slide guitar emulation and vocal style phrasing, plus hammer-ons and pull-offs including legato phrasing. You’ll also encounter finger tapping using both fretting and picking hands, and of course one of the most important aspects of all, rhythm.
Each of the 15 examples has been designed to highlight a key technique or articulation type and many of these examples are in the style of famous players that helped to progress the world of lead guitar playing to where it is today.
If you are working on a new technique or concept it is well worth taking your time and starting slowly. Rushing forward can be a false economy in the long run.
All of the examples and jam tracks are fully tabbed with the demonstration solos muted so you can play along. It would be most challenging to learn all 15 examples and then stitch the relevant pieces together to play the jam tracks note for note, so why not first have a go at constructing or improvising your own ideas using some of the techniques and concepts in this article.
In gym training they say there’s no gain without pain. While playing guitar should never be painful, the point of this article is to help you bone up on things you might find tricky, so try some of the concepts that are more alien to you, as well as those that fall easily under the fingers. Have fun!
Get the tone
Amp Settings: Gain 7, Bass 7, Middle 8, Treble 7, Reverb 3
To get the sound for this month’s article we used a bridge humbucker pickup and a thick overdrive, with a little touch of reverb and delay. That said, almost any electric guitar, pickup selection, amp tone and effects can be used here, although don’t go too extreme as you want to hear your notes and articulations clearly. Conjure up a tone that inspires you to play expressively.
Track 1. Technique focused
Example 1: Neal Schon-style harmonics
This first example uses natural harmonics with a scoop of the whammy bar. The attack of the fast picking can be accentuated with light palm muting. The lick is finished off with some high-pitched string bends that sing out.
Example 2. Jimmy Page good guitar clichés
Including a good guitar cliché provides something that listener can latch onto and relate to. Famous blues-rock solos are often a collage of great sounding snippets that have been used before and stitched together. The order in which these snippets are arranged and linked provides the original edge.
Example 3. Jeff Beck-style whammy bar effects
Jeff Beck was a master of manipulating the whammy bar to create expressive, slide and vocal like phrases. This lick may take a bit of practice to get right. Start slowly and study the tab to make sure all the fine detail is included.
We are using down plucks from the thumb here. Think of how a slide works in terms of the changes in pitch. You can then use this consideration to emulate the changes in pitch and the scoop/doop/vibrato style with the whammy bar.
Example 4. Eric Clapton-inspired repeating phrases
Repeating phrases is a great way to create excitement. This lick uses a tried and tested blues-rock three note-repeating phrase (check out Stairway To Heaven to The Final Countdown for variations). There are many similar phrases that Clapton uses and this one sounds great as it places groups of three into the space of four.
Example 5: Steve Lukather-style string bends and slides
When string bending with a floating vibrato, the other strings decrease in pitch the more you bend the string up. This makes bends with double-stops tricky as the other strings go flat. So Lukather will bend the string with his third finger, hold the bend and fret a note above on the same string with his fourth finger.
Backing track
Track 2. Theory-focused
Example 6. Arpeggio substitution
For this example we are using the G minor 7 arpeggio over a Cm9 chord. This arpeggio substitution provides a cool, C minor 9 type sound. For the F minor 9 chord we simply resolve the lick by playing the F minor 7 arpeggio.
Example 7: Pentatonic substitution
Here we are using G minor pentatonic over the Cm9 chord. This pentatonic substitution provides a cool, C minor 11 type sound. Again when moving to the
F minor 9 chord we simply resolve the lick by playing the F minor pentatonic scale. It’s the kind of approach that David Gilmour has used in the past.
Example 8. Pattern playing
Adding patterns into scale runs is a great way to add interest. For this idea you play C minor pentatonic in descending groups of six. Eric Johnson has been hugely influential with his pentatonic patterns. Our lick is relatively easy to play and you can experiment with using other groupings such as 3, 4 and 5.
Example 9: String skipping
Skipping strings is a great way to create ear-grabbing ideas with relative ease. Our example uses C minor pentatonic as a base. A simple descending pattern can be added and you can continue this type of idea as long as you want. To finish the lick we move to a string skipping fingering for the F minor 7 arpeggio.
Example 10. Chromatic notes
Adding chromatic notes is a surefire way to add colour and it also helps with creating smooth lines. We have added popular chromatic notes such as the diminished 5th (b5 = blue note) and minor 9th to create colour and tension. David Gilmour, Robben Ford, Jimmy Page, Larry Carlton and Alvin Lee excel at this.
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Track 3. Taste and feel-focused
Example 11: Slash – picked notes and legato notes
Guitarists like Guns N’ Roses axeman Slash, have played emotive melodies that complement the song. Our lick here is simple, yet effective.
Example 12: Steve Lukather – being melodic with motifs
Guitarists like Steve Lukather, David Gilmour, and Brian May are masters of including melodic motifs. A great way to write melodies is to sing or whistle them first. This ensures the melody has more chance of being memorable (hence The Old Grey Whistle Test term!).
Example 13. Eric Clapton style high-register playing
The high-register of the guitar sounds great and adds excitement to any solo. Eric Clapton is no stranger to playing up ‘the dusty end’ and our example cashes in on some ear grabbing large string bends right up as far as a 22-fret guitar will allow.
Example 14. Joe Satriani tapping and legato
For this example we are adding in a bit of flash. Tapping and legato are great techniques for adding those fast and fluid sounding runs. To provide a punctuation point, the harmonic on the 5th fret, third string (a high G note) is sounded then dropped down with a whammy bar doop. The scooped high C note ends the phrase!
Example 15. Carlos Santana syncopated phrasing off the downbeat
Players like Carlos Santana add interest to their phrases by using rhythmic syncopation (playing off the beat). Our example sounds a little less obvious as it starts on the off-beat of beat 1. This is followed by interesting rhythms that cash in on a richly syncopated feel.
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Minor key jam
Our minor jam links together four of the licks from examples 11 to 15 to create a functional demonstration solo. We have added and also re-phrased certain licks so they work best within the context of this solo.
Bars 1-6: Here we are starting with the Santana style idea from example 15. Bars 7-10: This is followed with the Slash-style idea from example 11.
Bars 11-14: Next up we are using the Steve Lukather style idea from example 12.
Bars 14-end: To finish off we link together the Eric Clapton style high register soloing from example 13 with the Joe Satriani style run from example 15.
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Major key jam
Our major jam links four licks from examples 1 to 5 to create our demonstration solo, again with extra bits and adaptations to help them fit. The core ingredients remain in tact.
Bars 1-6: We start with the Steve Lukather-style idea from example 5.
Bars 7-10: Next comes the Eric Clapton-style repeating phrase idea from example 4. To help this phrase link in with the Jeff Beck-style idea we have added natural harmonics on the 5th fret.
Bars 11-14: Next is the Jeff Beck-style idea from example 3.
Bars 14-end: We finish up with the idea from example 2. To help this phrase fit in with the track we have changed the rhythm of the final string bends in bar 18.
Have a listen to Gilmour, Santana, Clapton, Schon and co to hear how they use these various approaches. Enjoy your soloing!
Backing track
Jon Bishop is a UK-based guitarist and freelance musician, and a longtime contributor to Guitar Techniques and Total Guitar. He's a graduate of the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford and is touring and recording guitarist for British rock 'n' roll royalty Shakin’ Stevens.
