5 Tips To Improve Your Guitar Solos Now

Get the notation for the exercises here.

1.) Root notes! These are your "home" notes in the scale and the most resolved and rested.

---- Play the scale you'll be using to improvise with and pause on the root notes when you get to them

---- Focus on the root notes of the scale you're using and play with the notes right below and right above (you can also bend these notes to great effect)

2.) Vibrato! Vibrato brings notes to life and helps to cement phrases!

---- Left hand positioning- Having the proper left hand positioning is crucial to getting a smooth vibrato.

a.) The side of our Left hand first finger will be rested against the neck.

b.)  Our Vibratoing finger's first knuckle stays locked.

c.) The vibrato motion comes from a combination of turning of the arm and wrist.....not the finger!!

---- Rate of vibrato

a.) Strive for a consistent rate of vibrato----dont change speeds in the middle of shaking a note!

b.) Start off slow and then experiment with faster vibrato.

c.) Vibrato all the way to the end of the note!

3.)Repetition And Phrase Variations! Give the listener and yourself something to latch onto!

a.) If you play a phrase that sounds good....repeat it! This gives your ear and the listeners ear a chance to breath and a melody to latch onto.

b.) Vary this phrase that you've repeated by

---- Changing the last note of the phrase

---- Changing the first note of the phrase

---- Adding a note or two to the beginning or the ending of the phrase

4.) Muting! Keep all the unwanted strings from ringing so that your ideas come through clear!

a.) Left hand muting

---- The tip of the first finger will mute whatever string is directly below it and in most cases, most of the strings above it.

b.) Right hand muting

---- When playing on the high strings, the side of your right hand will mute out whatever is not being played.

Practice both of these techniques by putting on way too much distortion while trying to keep it as clean as possible!

5.)Contrast-Think about contrasting your ideas when soloing to keep the listeners and your own interest!

a.) Using range/register to contrast ideas

---- Play some short phrases around the lower strings and then contrast those by playing some phrases on the higher strings.

b.) Using density to contrast ideas

---- Play a phrase that has a bunch of notes and is quicker then contrast that by playing a shorter phrase that is slower with only 2-3 notes
 

Learn more in 1:1 lessons from Ray. Go to his booking page for more details.