How can i improve my soloing?

Question

making it sound deeper and meaningful

not the shred fast type solos

im into the melodic ones

uses pentatonic and major scales

Answer 1

OK so first I'll recommend you some guitarist and I want you to spend some time each day listening to them! You might already be familiar with some of them:

Marty Friedman (Megadeth)

Eric Clapton (Yardbirds, Cream)

David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

Frank Marino (Mahogany Rush)

Jimi Hendrix

This should be enough for now. I have never heard any of the five play anything that lacked meaning.

Now let's stay in that minor or major pentatonic for a few weeks until you really get the feeling (you can add some diatonic notes into it if need be). To make your solos meaningful you can basically do two things:

1, take care of WHAT you play

2, take care of HOW you play it

We'll leave the number one for now. Let's skip to number two. Have you ever noticed the difference between guys like Kirk Hammett and Marty Friedman?? The difference is that Kirk doesn't care of WHAT he plays at all (most of his solos sound like a very fast bunch of technique extension exercises combined with some pentatonic...I appologise to the Metallica-freak posers:)) and little of HOW he plays that. Marty on the other hand is THE maestro of both - whether he plays fast or slow.

The key to sound great is to develop a good vibrato and to be able to use it combined with bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides etc. Of course if you bend, do it in tune!! Not like Slash does it sometimes! So let's just jam over some basic 12-bar blues or some slow piece in minor key (Comfortably Numb would do great). Experiment not only with melodies but try different types of vibrato and bend techniques (try also 1/4 bends). Incorporate rhythm as well.

There is nothing more to say, you just need to jam..A LOT! And it'll come, you'll see.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Hey Cress

Move about from those boring pentatonic scale. Everybody is using them.

I will offer a few good suggestions . The rest is up to you.

I will use the key of A-minor as an example so we are on the same page.

Did you try throwing in a 'Whole tone scale while soloing on this key. Any Whole tone scale works in any position.

Use Bb major (Locrian mode) as a passing scale to finish a riff on A-minor.

You can also use Phrygian mode which would be soloing on F major as passing tones.

use diminished arpeggios which are very effective anywhere as well as diminished or half-dininished scales.

That should keep you going for a day or so. LOL....

Hope that helps....email me if there is something you didn't grasp and I will explain better.