Learning to play solos

[jim]

Hi everyone,

I'm still pretty much a beginner at guitar even though I started playing about 4 years ago. The thing that's getting me is that I just can't play solos!! Does anyone have any suggestions of songs that have relatively easy solos to learn? Any tips would also be greatly appreciated.

PS - I mostly listen to current bands (lots of Aussie ones) i.e - Spiderbait, Peabody, Faker, Dallas Crane, Love Outside Andromeda, White Stripes etc...

[Slider]

We all try to learn solos "parrot fashion" at one stage or another.

What makes it doubly hard in the earlier stages of learning to play is - lack of context. (you can learn solos note-for-note rom TAB but you need to get a reference framework in place to make them easier to remember and to know why certain notes "fit" and others don't.)

My advise would be - learn your scales and the various modes. Start with minor pentatonic, then major pentatonic. They will give you a basic framework on which to base a lot of solos.

Then learn the Major scale and its various modes (I've already covered this in detail at this thread - Learning to Play all Over the Neck.)

Once you've got this stuff down try using it to improvise your own solos over various chord changes - it's great fun.

You'll be surprised how much easier this knowledge helps you to learn others solos - but you may no longer want to once you can do your own!

Hope this helps.

[jim]

Thanks slider, I'll start practising scales right now!