How To Make Your Guitar Solos More Expressive By Choosing The Best Notes In Any Context
Struggle to play guitar solos that are truly inspiring and emotionally expressive?
Fact: Getting better at this isn't just about memorizing new scale or arpeggio patterns.
Instead, it's about training your ear so you are able to immediately choose the best note in any musical context to express a specific feeling or emotion.
How do you do this?
Find out by watching this free video about getting better at improvising lead guitar solos:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
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Now you know how to play guitar solos that sound great using less notes. Use these additional tips to improve your overall guitar playing to make everything you play sound totally pro:
Learn 3 Big Guitar Practicing Mistakes That Slow Down Your Progress To A Stop
It’s difficult to get better on guitar when your guitar practicing approach is full of mistakes. Here are three of the most common practice mistakes to avoid:
Mistake #1: Not Having Clear Musical Goals
Without clear guitar playing goals, it becomes nearly impossible to practice effectively and make progress. Not having goals sets you up to practice things in a random manner.
This means that you might make progress in one area a little bit, then progress in another area a little bit… but this progress is spread out over a long period of time and is inconsistent.
Having definite musical goals set is the greatest way to put yourself onto a straight path where you know precisely which steps to take to get better and how close you are to reaching the next level.
You also don't have to deal with the frustration that comes from not understanding what to practice and becoming overwhelmed by having too many things to practice at once.
Mistake #2: Practicing Guitar Without Focus
Results-based guitar practice takes total focusing on the things you are doing in order to correctly spot mistakes, fix them and move onto repeating the process with new issues.
This is infinitely more effective than what so many guitar players do: practice mindlessly by just repeating exercises again and again without focusing on what they are doing.
Don't make the same mistake. Practice with total focus... you get faster results and enjoy the improvement process so much more!
Mistake #3: Not Tracking Progress Consistently
Tracking and measuring your progress is a key part of knowing you’re your practicing approaches are bringing results.
Consider this like having the goal of losing weight: your exercise habits become much more productive when you track how effective they are by measuring your body fat%, monitoring your diet and changing your approach when needed.
Don't simply assume your guitar practice is effective… track it and measure it so you know for certain! Do this once at the end of the week for 25 minutes and watch as you make significantly more progress than before.
Approaches That Take Your Guitar Playing To The Highest Level
Ready to make faster progress on guitar than ever before?
Get started by using these creative practice approaches to take your playing to the highest level:
Approach #1: Practice With Your Eyes Closed
Being able to play guitar without even looking at your hands is an impressive skill that many of the best guitarists have. Training yourself to play like this gives you greater command over your instrument than ever before!
Schedule some time to practice guitar with your eyes closed every few days or so to become accustomed to it. When you do this, don't spend time worrying about mistakes. Eventually, playing without watching your hands becomes effortless.
Doing this also helps you prepare for playing in live musical situations where there is poor lighting.
Approach #2: Recording Yourself During Guitar Practice
Practicing guitar in your bedroom is a very low-pressure situation. Adding a greater sense of pressure forces you to improve your playing skills, because it simulates real-life musical situations (such as playing on stage for others).
Add pressure to your guitar practice routine by recording yourself while you play. Doing this makes you more likely to try to play perfectly rather than allow some mistakes to pass.
Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to listen back to yourself and find mistakes you never noticed before.
Approach #3: Practice Guitar While Performing (Versus Sitting Down)
Don't let yourself to get into the habit of sitting down to practice guitar every time you practice. Get outside of your comfort zone by playing guitar while standing up, walking around your room or performing the items you are playing.
This adds a higher degree of difficulty that you would never experience while sitting down.
Study videos of your favorite guitarists to get ideas for how to perform the things you practice and record yourself to judge your performance and make any adjustments needed. This helps you put on a great performance whether you are live in front of an audience or just playing to impress your friends and family.
“I just love guitar lessons with Tom, he literally takes the time to make a specific lesson plan and sends you lessons as you need it.”
My last lesson I took with a local guitar teacher before joining Tom, I was struggling with a sweep picking pattern, which was the 5 string root major, I was really struggling to get the rolling technique down. I took it to my guitar teacher and I was like “Help me with this, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” This is his exact phrase: “At high speeds, it doesn’t really matter if you can play it clean or not, no one can hear it anyway.” At that point, I was just like, “Ah man.” But thankfully, in that same message, he mentioned Tom’s name. Then the doors opened. That very night, I went home and looked at every single lesson Tom had, had my guitar in hand, every YouTube lesson on you know “correct motions”, “play this over chords”... just applied it instantly, and it was instant results within an hour... just from his free stuff. I was like, oh man, I’ve got to do lessons with this guy.
I remember when I first started out with lessons, I instantly jumped on the forum to greet myself, and it’s amazing how there’s like 30 responses. Just like, “Hi welcome.” and stuff... “Hi Dan, great musical tastes”. That made me feel really at home and welcomed into Tom’s forum and community. Every time I’ve had an issue when I was first starting out be it like theory or technique, there’s always been someone there who’s helped. Otherwise it could’ve been this potentially awkward process where I’d have to wait a whole week to get an answer from my teacher, who even then may not have answered it correctly and may have never solved it. Whereas there are guys on there who have been with Tom and have been through exactly what I’ve been through. They know exactly how to help, in what order, what information you need... it’s just a friendly atmosphere really.
Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, UK
“July of 2012, I had been managing in a retail store and was kind of reaching this point where I was really getting frustrated because I had been struggling to progress in my guitar playing. I had this mindset that I had to teach myself everything... you know and the best players are all self taught and stuff like that...”
...and I remembered Tom Hess from that book, and I said “You know, it’s time to look this guy up and see what he’s all about.” And it didn’t take me very long to figure out that this is the kind of person that I needed to get on board with.
My playing has definitely improved technique-wise, but probably the most important change I have experienced is just in my overall mindset as a player and as a practicing musician. I just feel like I have a much better frame of mind and a much better idea of where I am going and where my guitar practicing is taking me. Whereas before I just felt like I had to practice everything and I had a whole bunch of stuff going on. It’s a lot more focused now.
Being in the environment that Tom has created with his other students is incredibly motivating. I had always been in my own little shell, kind of just stayed on my own. Coming out here... like when I came out here last year was a big step out of my comfort zone. Getting around all these other musicians... it’s unbelievable how great some of these guys are, not just as players, but as people.
Andrew Tintle, Richmond, California USA
“Before the online guitar lessons, I had a lot of trouble with phrasing. I couldn’t make good note choices, I was always fishing for the next note. I was trying to think of ways that I could play, but it didn’t sound good. I didn’t know how to write songs, it was absolutely terrible, everything sounded the same. I couldn’t really… I didn’t feel confident with my playing. I definitely couldn’t build speed for anything, I was really sloppy and I was dissonant… and it was really painful to play.”
I chose Tom Hess because when I read his articles they blew my mind away. I got so much out of that, that I didn’t get anywhere else.
The main reason I like taking lessons with Tom online is because, number one: yes it was the personalized lessons strategy… I read everything about it, and it was so compelling, just like that he really takes everything that I can or can’t do into account, and then he’ll take what I want to be able to do and then basically map out every step of the way until I get there. And that was just really powerful, and that I’d be able to get feedback every 6 weeks, and the fact that we’ve got the forum. We’ve got instant help and they all really know what they’re talking about… they’re not just like anybody… they… I mean some of them are virtuoso guitar players... I mean, they know their stuff and then of course the mindset of this whole environment. The friends I’ve made here just… I can’t really put into words.
I didn’t have a budget when I started. I had a good enough job that I could take lessons for however long I wanted, so that wasn’t a problem, but I feel like I’ve gotten 100 times what I paid you know.
Matteo Miller, San Diego, California, USA
Learn how to killer guitar solos that are fast, clean, creative and jaw-dropping by studying with your own online guitar tutor.
Once you've checked out the video above, watch the videos below to see jam sessions and feedback from other guitarists who have worked with me to make massive progress on guitar.