What scale is Jimmy Page using for No Quarter solo?

Question

I'm learning leads, and looking at solo off of tabs on internet. Curios to what key and scale Led Zep's Jimmy Page is using on No Quarter, to further understand soloing.

Answer 1

Well referring to this tab of the song here:

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/l/le...

That would be the Key of E Major.  

Although rock is usually based around Penatonic Scales, it looks like Page uses a the 7th a few times in the solo.  

So if you look at the Key of E Major:  E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, and D#.  

You can also look at the E Major Penatonic:  E, F#, G#, B, and C#.  

As for what scale is he using in the song?  Well he's using the E Major Scale with a few different modes.

If you are learning how to lead and solo, then you need to learn Modes.  It's key to fly around the guitar.  

Modes teach you how to play a Scale all over the guitar.  So Page knows how to rock the E Major Scale all over the guitar using modes.  Modes give you a map of the entire scale through all of the frets.  

I just helped another guy learn modes recently and have a bunch of diagrahms I made for him.  Email if you'd like them sent to you.  

Also you can start to learn modes here as well:

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/search.ph...