By
John Ellis
Part of learning to play guitar scales and solos in blues guitar or any other kind of music involves learning small slices of music called riffs and licks. Licks are sequences of notes used a a basis for improvisation or composing solos.
Many newbies are fascinated by the way
lead guitarists are blazing through a solo and keep wondering how
they can do that. They just can’t understand how these people
figure out which notes can would sound right before playing them. The
following article is aimed to show some perspective on how to learn
lead guitar and begin to make up your own guitar solos.
The
Blues Scale
What many beginner guitarists who want to learn
lead guitar do not know that improvising doesn’t mean just playing
random notes and hoping they will sound great together. Before you
can learn lead guitar, you should know that professional guitar
players usually draw their solos from a scale, which they are using
as a template for improvisation. The blues scale, despite the name,
is actually a scale used very often in all guitar solo styles.
How
to Use It?
Try practicing this scale forwards and backwards,
while using alternate picking and make sure you play each note evenly
and cleanly. After you got this right, try to play each note two
times before you get to the next one. Make up different ways to play
the blues scale to challenge your playing skills.
Play the blues
scale so that the root begins on the letter name of the scale you are
trying to play. For example, if you want to play a C blues scale,
you’ve got to find the note C on the fretboard and start the scale
from that note.
Improvising
Once you’ve become
familiar with the blues scale, you might want to take up some theory
lessons and learn more on the different positions of pentatonic and
blues scales. However, you can get to play a lot of great stuff just
by using the single position explained above, so start practicing on
making up your own solos before you memorize tons of scale
positions.
Once you’ve managed to learn lead guitar basics,
you can start improvising. The concept is fairly simple: all you have
to do is string together some licks from the blues scale that sound
good together. However, when you try to do it, you’ll realize it’s
actually more difficult than it sounds. You might want to get some
soloing lessons for beginner guitarists that want to learn lead
guitar. Accesrock.com provides some good lessons.
After you
did some practicing, you should visit the Home for all Guitar Lovers
website that shows several guitar licks. You can try to memorize some
of these and use them in your own solos. Don’t get frustrated if
you play rather badly at first; if you like what you’re doing, it
will get better over time.