The #1 Secret To Guitar Improvising Skills That Turn Into To Breathtaking Guitar Solos

If you were to ask me:

“Tom Hess, what’s the #1 secret to guitar improvising skills that let me play awesome guitar solos whenever I want?”

I’d tell you to STOP learning chords, licks and scales for awhile…

..and instead “bulk up” the lagging musical “muscle” most guitarists neglect to the point of atrophy.

What is this “muscle”?

Your musical ear.

Few musicians ever train their ear the way it ought to be trained for great guitar improvising skills.

(Even those who practice identifying intervals, scales and chords with ear training apps.)

And that's why they rarely feel happy about thier guitar improvising. 

But fear not:

You’re about to discover simple ear training tricks that make your guitar improvising skills improve quickly.

To begin, watch the ear training video below:

Now that you know the basics for guitar improvising, let’s dig deeper.

Check out these 4 ear training tips that help you create breathtaking guitar solos:


Guitar Improvising Skills Training Tip #1: Turn Your Musical Ear Into A “Phrasing Gauge”

What’s more important in a guitar solo than the way it makes you feel?

Is there anything? 

Thought so.

And what determines how you feel about a solo is…

…phrasing.

(Phrasing means “how” you play the notes.)

Great guitar improvising requires using your ears as a “phrasing gauge” to tell when your phrasing is great and when it isn’t (and make appropriate adjustments to make it great).

This process is called “refinement”.

Watch this video where I walk through this process:

Guitar Improvising Skills Training Tip #2: Remember The Feeling Of Each Note You Play

You already know how important phrasing is to a great guitar solo. But does that mean note choice is unimportant?

Heck no!

And the best way to choose the right notes during guitar improvising is to know what emotions each note creates.

It’s easier than you think.

Watch this cool guitar improvising video where I explain how to do it in detail:

Guitar Improvising Skills Training Tip #3: Train Your Ear To “Like” Non-Chord Tones

Playing only chord tones all the time sounds nice… but gets pretty boring pretty fast. So, what is the solution?

Answer:

Training your ear to love the sound of non-chord tones.

The key to this is (surprise!): good phrasing.

Here is how to train your ear (and your phrasing) to make non-chord tones sound awesome in your guitar solos and guitar improvising:

Guitar Improvising Skills Training Tip #4: Train Your Ear To Use Rhythm Creatively In Your Guitar Solos

Most guitar players rely on the possibility of playing more notes to add interest to their during their guitar solos and develop their guitar improvising skills.

That’s good as far as it goes…

…but what if we stripped away the pitches of your guitar solos and only listened to its rhythm?

How interesting would your guitar improvising sound then?

Great guitar improvising skills mean listening to the rhythm of their licks and find ways to make it as interesting as the pitches they play.

You can do this in 2 ways:

- take a single guitar lick and vary its rhythm as much as you can (keep the pitches the same).

- use rubato to create rhythmic tension in your solo. Suddenly speed up or slow down as you play not in strict time. This lead guitar rubato video shows how.

You now know the secret to developing the guitar improvising skills needed to play breathtaking lead guitar solos. The next step is to polish your guitar licks and squeeze more emotion from each note. I show you how in my free lead guitar licks eGuide: “The Secret To Adding Fire & Emotion To Any Guitar Lick”. Download it today and start playing guitar solos you’ll feel proud to call your own.

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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.

Want to take your guitar improvising skills to the next level? Study with a top online rock guitar teacher.

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