How can I learn to improv solos on the guitar?

Question

I have been playing for about 9 years, and I feel pretty comfortable technically. I can learn an existing solo and play it after some practice. But I'm totally inept when it comes to improv. I usually just end up playing the same two riffs of the pentatonic scale over and over. Do you know of any great resources (online or otherwise) in this area? I'm looking for a very comprehensive 'start to finish' type of instruction.

Answer 1

Ok here we go,

1. Learn the Pentatonic "box" --which it sounds like you already know. Their are 5 different positions for this box though. You need to memorize the shape of all of them. It will take a while to play smoothly in between them. Here is a good article on how to get started on that :

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/g...

2. Memorize all the notes on the guitar. You should be able to look at the 11th fret G string and instantly know that is an F#, that sort of thing. Their is a very good program i found that will help you do this. It is called Absolute Fretboard Trainer. It took me about 6 weeks (20 min a day) to really know the fretboard instantly. Learning this will make your solos stronger. You will be able to play the same note that the chord is on at that time. Great players like David Gilmour do this to make solos really stand out and have that perfect for the song sound.

3. Once you have the Pentatonic boxes down--you can add 2 more notes to the pentatonic scale. The 2nd and 6th degree. This is called a diatonic scale. Everything will be in the same place as you were playing the pentatonic scale but you will just have 2 more notes that are added in. Once you memorize the scales with these 2 added notes, you can start working with modes. Modes will allow you to play music from any genre, not just the rock or blues genre like the pentatonic scale does.

*Keep in mind this is not an easy task. Depending on how serious about it you are--this could take years or months. The hard part is getting started.....once you get down all the pentatonic boxes you will start to see your reward.

Grant M- Are you serious man? Trust me if you really want to go from an intermediate guitarist to a great one these are the steps you need to take. Don't go by some "learn to play in 2 weeks method". 90% of rock songs use the pentatonic scale--so i don't know what this Grant M is talking about. Like I said once you master the pentatonic scale and add the 2 extra notes creating the diatonc scale you will be able to play whatever you want. (flamenco, jazz, classical, bluegrass, whatever you want.)

Here is good website for scales:

http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/gu...

Answer 2

Learn as many scales as you can, listen to a lot of music, and solo over your favorite songs.

Answer 3

Okay, first thing, don't listen to what the first guy wrote.  You don't want to learn out of the pentatonic boxes unless you want to sound like some 15 year old from a terrible garage band.  Or Ace Frehley for that matter.  The most valuable thing you can do is to memorize all the positions of the C scale.  I'm only referring to it as the C scale because that is the scale the guitar is set up for.  These positions can be moved up and down all the way on the neck to play in any key you want to.  What you need to buy is the Ron Greene Dial for soloing.  It has all the positions you need to learn, and shows you where to play them for every key.  It also has some back tracking so you can solo ontop of other guitars playing rhythem.  If you learn these positions, you will be soloing like a pro in no time at all.  I've been playing for about 6 years, and my musical abilities have changed completely ever since i learned this about a year and a half ago.  It makes improv solos a lot of fun and really easy.