Want to play guitar solos that sound more expressive, rhythmically creative and impressive?
There is oone very easy way to do this and you don't even have to learn new techniques, how to play faster or deep theoretical topics.
What is it?
How to use syncopation in your guitar solos.
What is syncopation?
I'll tell you.
Watch this video to get the full explanation and learn how to use syncopation to play guitar solos that sound great:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
Becoming an incredibly expressive guitarist means mastering the use of bends and vibrato in your lead guitar playing.
Get started by making sure you are able to keep these techniques in tune.
It's not hard at all to do this - just spend a little bit of time each day bending the strings trying to get them in tune every time.
An effective exercise to use for this is to first pick the target note that you will be bending up to with the note bent, then applying the bend to the original pitch to quickly try to match the sound of the original note to the bent note.
Eventually, this becomes very easy and you no longer need to play the target note to prepare yourself and stay in tune each time you bend the strings.
Question: “My guitar solos don't seem to lack much emotion. I think I may need to use more vibrato? Is this important or just a side technique?”
Answer: You should definitely apply more vibrato into your guitar playing by using it on the longer sustained notes.
Guitar players often play guitar solos without using enough vibrato and they become very dull over time. They just don't know how important this skill is to master… but good news is, it doesn’t take forever to get better.
Your vibrato technique doesn't have to be the same as that of your favorite players right away, but it’s good to have at least some vibrato used on the longer-held notes to add life into your guitar playing.
Work on doing this using just a handful of notes and trying to make them sound as emotionally expressive as possible.
Focus on thinking of many variations in terms of ways you can apply vibrato. This gives you even more mileage out of an already expressive technique.
Question: “What is another easy way to make my guitar solos sound more musical?”
Answer: Anytime you find yourself repeating the same idea over and over in your guitar solos, ask “What can I do to make this idea more interesting or add variety to it?”
This basic question helps you to begin thinking more creatively and over time your solos become more interesting.
For instance, you might find how many times you can vary the way you use legato such as slides or hammer-ons to embellish a single note in a given guitar lick, then move onto another note in the phrase and repeat.
Remembering this as you play guitar solos helps a lot with being aware of this issue in your playing and knowing when to begin expanding the phrasing further.
Tip #2: Play Guitar Solos More Melodically By Practicing Better Phrasing
When you play each guitar lick during a solo, it’s important to know how you will move to the next phrase in a smooth and interesting way.
Unfortunately, most guitar players just play notes up and down and hope it sounds good.
Don't fall into this same trap!
Work on doing this instead:
Think of a short guitar phrase, and then sing what will come next (just sing a few notes).
Next, try to play those notes using your guitar. This makes your phrases connect and flow more smoothly just like a singer’s melody.
Over time, your guitar playing solos become more melodic and musically expressive. Plus, your guitar licks begin to feel more musical!
Tip #3: Learn How To Play Guitar Solos Better With A Teacher:
Do you spend a lot of time online looking for new guitar solo tabs, technique videos or exercises to help you improve your soloing?
You're not alone.
Many guitar players do this, but making a lot of progress in little time requires a different approach.
Namely:
Stop trying to learn everything all by yourself.
Your lead guitar skills (and musical skills in all areas) improve massively when you get better with an expert guitar educator who recognizes how to quickly get you from where you are now to your highest musical goals ASAP.
Guitarists who take lessons from a teacher improve their weaknesses exceptionally faster than they would on their own.
This is because guitar teachers identify how to help you resolve issues in your playing that you never knew about while taking you down the right track that quickly gets you to your highest guitar playing goals!
If you are still not ready to get started taking guitar lessons with your own teacher, quit holding back and make the correct decision for your playing immediately. The earlier you make this decision, the faster you can at last begin performing on guitar just like you always wanted, while taking care of the troubles in your playing that frustrate you ...
Make the right decision and begin taking lessons today.
Don't just take my word for it though.
Here is what my students have to say about taking guitar lessons:
“I found Tom Hess on the net through articles, and I read quite a few of those before I went to Tom’s website. Even though I’m not a metal player at all, and Tom is obviously a metal player, I could still see that his ideas and way of teaching could really benefit me. So I pretty much signed up for online guitar lessons with Tom straight away once I’d gone through the website, and it’s just been a real eye opener with the way he teaches…”
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... the integration of concepts that he’ll give you and having a really structured strategy… not just week to week lessons, but things that - you can see from one lesson to the next - really develop and continue to work on your technique and your theory and aural skills and those types of things. So I’d played a long time… 20 years before I really caught onto Tom, and I’d had a lot of lessons, and I’d taught and played but I can really see improvements in my technique, sweeping, and picking which weren’t strong parts of my playing.
I feel like Tom has a good gauge of where you’re at as a guitar player and what you need, and there just seemed to be so much more stuff in the lessons week to week than what you’d ever get in an hour or so in a one on one lesson… way more. So yeah I think that and the forum. I think, I’d pay the money just for the forum. That alone would be fine… I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. So that alone is massive!
The price for the lessons, that’s nothing... nothing. You know, I think it’s, pretty cheap to be honest. I don’t mean that in a bad way, cheap. Cheap is not a good word, but I just think it’s great value… awesome value. I mean, you know, you could pay that for one-to-one lessons and you just don’t get the same results and support of the forum and the content and the strategies.
Other teachers I’ve had have been good players, and some have become good friends too. But when I’ve started lessons with Tom I’ve got something to compare that to and a lot of it is just sort of teaching songs from week to week… a lot of the lesson will be left up to you… you’ll go to your lesson and they’ll be like what do you want to do today? At the time I said, oh do this song or that song, but with Tom you start to realize that you know, there’s more to it… the goals and you know he’s sort of more in contact with what you want to be able to do as a player, because he’s asking you the questions and then setting up the strategies, so I find that really good.
Yeah I can see more results in 18 months in a lot of areas in my playing than you know 20 years. So it’s sort of, you know, would’ve been great 20 years ago to have met Tom.
Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia
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When I started learning from Tom, the main thing that made him different from other teachers was that he was showing me how to excel in all aspects of my guitar playing by applying the skills that I already knew together with the new material that I was learning from him.
He made me aware of both strengths and weaknesses in my playing that I did not even know I had. From there he gave me the knowledge, tools and guidance to literally transform my guitar playing by enabling me to overcome things that were preventing me from becoming a truly creative and self-expressive guitar player. These were the kinds of things that none of my previous guitar teachers and books I studied were able to do for me.
After Tom made me aware of all the things I was missing in my guitar playing and provided me with the strategy and tools for solving them, I began to make very fast progress in all areas of my guitar playing.
I can now write my own music and can create lead guitar solos that I am happy and fulfilled with. I also have the technical skills to confidently and easily play anything that I want to express. I have overcome all of the lead guitar challenges that I struggled with before, and increased my guitar speed to virtuoso levels. More importantly, I have the knowledge and understanding of how to continually improve my guitar playing and musical skills to higher and higher levels to continue expressing myself with my music. Overall, I have definitely transformed in a huge way as a musician and as a person through my lessons with Tom Hess. I am grateful to him for guiding me towards becoming the guitarist I always wanted to be!"
Mike Philippov, Indiana, USA
“When I first heard about Tom Hess, I saw that he was a teacher that was very dedicated and serious about it, and that drew me in immediately. That this is a guy that has a plan, has a goal and really if you’re serious about learning guitar, this guy is equally as serious in a way. So it resonated with me straight away.”
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I started out just learning by myself and as many others I got stuck. I had a few issues I wanted to get by, but when I met Tom and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be.
I feel very grateful that I found lessons from Tom since I then did what worked from the very beginning. Many guitarists I see that played way longer than I did, they have build up many bad habits. That from the very start, there was clear instruction of how to practice correctly. You build the ability for high speed and whatever you want from the very beginning and you don’t waste time doing inefficient things. So I’m very grateful that I did that, and now I really feel I am able to reach whatever level I want.
The reasons why I think I feel so motivated all the time is because I know that the thing I’m working on is relevant for me and it’s exactly the direct thing I need to get.
The forum just kicks ass. The people in the forum - it’s just like unconditional help all the time. They love to help out, and you also get very inspired by seeing someone just really getting speed really quick and then you say if he can do it, I can do it. It works on the mental side of being a guitarist and that of course that’s the most important thing. Just being around other musicians like that, is just you learn so much faster, is so much less frustration when you can see that all the people are having the same issues that you do, not anything special or anything. It’s just part of learning process, so it kicks ass.
Magnus Gautestad, Norway
Ready to learn more about playing great guitar solos? Let me teach you all about playing creatively on guitar. Get started with online guitar lessons with a great guitar teacher.