How To Play An Easy Guitar Solo That Sounds Great Starting With A Single Note

by Tom Hess


Want to play an easy guitar solo that sounds great without needing advanced playing skills?

Of course!

Now, think about this:

What is the one thing you want to avoid when you go to play a guitar solo?

Answer:

Wasting notes.

This means you don't think about the expressive reasons for your note choices and instead simply repeat memorized patterns or licks while hoping something sounds good.

Rather than investing all your practice time into technique or speed, start learning how to squeeze tons of emotion out of every note you play.

Just focusing on making ONE note in a given lead guitar lick or solo sound great helps you build the skill needed to make many notes sound great too.

Here’s what I mean:


How To Play An Easy Guitar Solo That Sounds Great:

  • Pick a couple of chords  to play over (or use a backing track)
     
  • Choose any guitar lick, scale or pattern you are comfortable with that fits over the chords
     
  • Pick just a single note from the pattern you chose
     
  • Solo using only this note for 2 minutes

    How?

    During these 2 minutes, make this note feel emotionally expressive in as many ways as you can: such as you using different rhythms, legato ornaments, vibrato, bend, harmonics, speed picking, slides, or any other technique.

    Make it sound as expressive as you can like a singer’s voice.



Repeat this simple exercise by adding one more note each couple of minutes to play easy guitar solos that are very musical and memorable without advanced technique.

Want to learn more ways to make your overall guitar playing sound musically expressive?

Voice leading helps you use the individual notes within chord progressions to create smooth melody lines that sounds expressive and totally pro. Massively improve your expressive creativity using this idea by watching this video about voice leading for guitar.


About Tom Hess: Tom Hess is a guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar teacher trainer. He teaches rock guitar lessons online to students from all over the world and conducts instructional live guitar training events attended by musicians from over 50 countries.

Learn more ways to become a creative guitarist with studying guitar online.