Learn How To Play Emotional Guitar Solos Using Just A Single Note

Wish you could play emotional guitar solos that sounded expressive just the ones the pros play?

No problem!

It's actually not as difficult as you think, once you understand what makes the notes in a guitar solo feel so emotional. You actually have the power to play amazing things on guitar using no more than just one note.

How is this possible?

I'll show you.

Watch this video to discover how to play emotional guitar solos every time you grab your instrument - starting with just a single note:

Click on the video to begin watching it.

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Now that you have watched the video, you are ready to play emotional guitar solos like never before! Use these additional tips to refine your skills:

Play Emotional Guitar Solos Tip #1: Improve Your Bends & Vibrato

Bending and vibrato technique are staples for being able to play emotional guitar solos that really reach out and grab anyone listening.

One way to nake sure these techniques sound great is to work on consistently keeping them in tune.

Investing just a few minutes each day working on nothing but bending the strings helps you become more consistent and expressive in no time.

Try this out when you sit down to practice bending strings:

Play the pitch that you will be bending up to (by picking it as a normal note) and then play the bend in order to match the sound of the two pitches precisely.

Over time, this becomes second nature and you never need to worry about ruining guitar solos with out of tune string bends.

Question: “My guitar solos don't seem to sound as emotional as the ones by my favorite players since I use vibrato very rarely or as good. Should I use it more often?”

Answer: Yes! Make sure to at least use vibrato on the longer notes of your guitar solos and licks.

Guitar players frequently play guitar solos that eventually sound boring because there is no vibrato in them (or not enough). They just don't know they are making this mistake. It's easy to fix though if you are.

Practice this skill by simply trying to make a single note sound as expressive as possible with vibrato.

Focus on thinking of many variations for the kinds of approaches you use to playing vibrato as well. For example, try using wide/fast vibrato, narrow/slow vibrato, slides into vibrato, and so forth.

Question: “What is a way to play emotional guitar solos that sound memorable?”

Answer: Try this: Anytime you repeat a melody while you play guitar solos, ask yourself “What can I do to make this idea sound more interesting than the first time I played it?”

This simple question forces you to start thinking more creatively in order to make memorable guitar licks that bring your guitar solos together like a story or a conversation. For example, you might start using phrasing ornaments such as varying the rhythm, bending/sliding into some of the notes, palm muting, etc. to add subtle (but interesting) variation to repeated ideas.

Doing this consistently helps you become aware of how the notes feel emotionally much so you can get better - this is much mroe effective than simply looking for cool guitar licks to memorize for solos as many players do.

Play Emotional Guitar Solos Tip #2: Improve Your Aural Skills

When you play guitar solos, it’s important to have some idea of how each phrase/lick in the solo transitions into the next one.

Don't make the common mistake of just hoping to eventually run into a cool note or phrases while soloing memorized patterns!

Try this instead:

Play a short phrase, and then sing the next half of the phrase using only your voice.

Next, try to play the notes you sang on guitar. This programs you to make your phrases connect and flow more smoothly just like vocalist's melody in a song.

Practicing this over time makes your guitar playing take on a more melodic and musically emotional quality. Plus, your fast guitar licks will naturally begin to become more expressive too!

Play Emotional Guitar Solos Tip #3: Learn From A Good Guitar Teacher

Do you spend a lot of time online looking for lessons, videos or exercises to help you play guitar solos better?

You're not the only one.

Tons of guitar plaers do this, but making massive progress requires working with a guitar teacher.

Your guitar solos (and musical skills in all areas) develop quickly when you get better with an expert guitar teacher who has already helped many others play lead guitar just how you want to.

It's a fact: guitar players who learn with a teacher improve their weaknesses much faster than they would on their own. This means you are no longer held back from playing the solos, licks, techniques and patterns that frustrate you.

This is because great guitar teachers are masters at helping you resolve issues in your playing that you never knew about while helping you reach your musical goals as effectively as possible!

If you are still not ready to get started taking guitar lessons with your own teacher, I say this: Try it out. Make the biggest decision for your guitar playing skills you could ever make. The faster you make this decision, the faster you begin performing on guitar just like you always wanted to.

Make the right decision and begin taking guitar lessons today.

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…”

... 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

"When I came to Tom for online guitar lessons, I already had a decent overall level of technique and understood the basics of music theory pretty well. I had taken lessons with other teachers before, and went through several guitar method books that promised to teach me how to become a great lead guitar player. I learned all the materials in these books and courses and picked up some useful tips and knowledge along the way. Yet for some reason I still wasn't feeling like a musician. I struggled very much with writing my own songs, creating my own solos and pushing my guitar technique and speed to a higher level (especially sweep picking, alternate picking, and playing clean at high speeds).

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.”

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

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