A Simple Way To Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes And Play Lead Guitar Like A Pro
Emotion To Any Guitar Lick
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In this lead guitar article, I’ll show you how to easily solo over guitar chord changes and play lead guitar like a pro…
… even if you’re not an advanced guitarist yet.
This awesome skill makes it easy to:
- Jam over lead guitar backing tracks and have a ton of fun
- Join a band and impress your friends (and everyone else who hears you play) with the sound of your awesome lead guitar solos.
- Play lead guitar like a pro (play guitar solos on stage, write your own guitar solos for your own songs, and create new, inspiring guitar lick ideas other lead guitarists will want to steal).
Emotion To Any Guitar Lick
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
How do you get to that level?
First, I’ll lay out the simple process that makes soloing over guitar chord changes simple and fun…
And then, we’ll build on it using even cooler lead guitar soloing tricks that make you a pro-level lead guitar player.
To begin, watch the lead guitar video below:
And now that you know the basics…
Here are 5 more lead guitar skills that help you solo over guitar chord changes and play lead guitar like a pro:
Tip #1 For Helping You Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes: Use Rubato
What is rubato and how does it help you play better lead guitar solos?
Answer:
Instead of playing strict divisions of the beat in your lead guitar licks (as you solo over guitar chord changes), you play notes that aren’t in strict time.
You speed up (or slow down), often creating the feeling of ‘cramming’ notes into the beat.
Rubato is a fantastic way to build musical tension as you solo over guitar chord changes and make the phrasing of your guitar licks sound as unique and personal to you as your fingerprint.
Watch this video to see (and hear) how awesome rubato sounds and how much it helps you to play lead guitar like a pro as you solo over guitar chord changes:
Question: “Tom Hess, but won’t playing out of time make my guitar licks and guitar solos sound sloppy and amateur? Isn’t that the opposite of what it means to play lead guitar like a pro?”
Answer: Playing rubato doesn’t mean playing lead guitar solos out of time.
It’s a way to stretch or compact the time within the beat, while still being aware of where the beat is.
There is a big and very noticeable difference between playing guitar licks with rubato when you solo over guitar chord changes…
… and playing lead guitar out of time because you have no idea where the beat is.
Also, rubato (like any lead guitar technique) can be overdone if you use it too much when you solo over guitar chord changes.
It’s best to use it sparingly (in combination with regular divisions of the beat, like triplets and 16th notes).
For more awesome examples of rubato used expressively well, check out:
- Chopin’s 24 Preludes
- Early Eddie Van Halen solos
- Michael Romeo from Symphony X (especially any of the solos on the Divine Wings Of Tragedy album.)
- Jason Becker (Perpetual Burn album).
Bonus tip: on top of rubato, you can vary the rhythm of your lead guitar licks as you solo over guitar chord changes.
Most lead guitarists play the same predictable note values all the time. E.g. a steady stream of 8th notes, 16th notes and/or triplets.
If you want to play lead guitar like a pro, use other note values, such as dotted notes and rests.
The best way to use such rhythms into your guitar solos?
Write out the rhythm on paper (or in a computer program, such as Guitar Pro). Then, pick up your guitar and improvise guitar licks using that rhythm.
As a lead guitar challenge, you can improvise an entire guitar solo using a single rhythm. This will force you to concentrate more on the rhythm of your guitar licks as you solo… which will help you to play lead guitar like a pro.
Tip #2 For Helping You Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes: Play Lead Guitar Licks Over The Bar
Most guitar players begin their guitar licks in predictable places. e.g. At the start of the beat… or on a chord change.
“And what’s wrong with this way of playing lead guitar”, you ask?
Answer: If that is the only way you know how to solo over guitar chord changes, your guitar solos start to sound predictable and repetitive.
That’s why learning to play guitar licks over the bar line can help your guitar solo stand out and sound uniquely like you.
This video shows how to use this lead guitar technique to solo over guitar chord changes, so you can play lead guitar like a pro:
Tip #3 For Helping You Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes: Study Great Singers
One bad habit lead guitarists often develop as they attempt to solo over guitar chord changes is noodling through notes. (i.e. playing lead guitar phrases with no start or end points.)
This makes your guitar solos sound the way it feels to read a punctuation-free wall of text.
The best way to solve this lead guitar mistake?
Mimic the phrase structure of great singers.
A singer, unlike a lead guitar player, is limited in the number of notes they can sing in a single breath.
This forces singers to pay attention to how they start a melody, when they start it, how many notes they will sing and how long each note (and each phrase) will last.
That is what makes the singer’s melodies sound so different compared to the lead guitar licks and solos of most guitarists who solo over guitar chord changes.
How do you ‘study’ great singers as you work on your lead guitar playing?
Answer: transcribe the melodies of your favorite singers on guitar, note for note. This will teach you to make the structure of your lead guitar licks (and solos) more expressive and creative than that of a typical guitarist.
Bonus lead guitar tip tip (that will help you solo over guitar chord changes and play lead guitar like a pro):
Begin a guitar solo by writing a melody on your guitar. You can also hum (with your voice - even if you’re not a singer) over a backing track and create a melody that way… or, you can play a melody on piano.
Use mainly long notes (quarter notes, half notes and whole notes, as well as rests and dotted notes).
Then, with your melody created, flesh it out on guitar with faster guitar licks and the usual lead guitar techniques you might play in a guitar solo.
Here is what this lead guitar soloing process might look like:
Tip #4 For Helping You Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes: Focus on your Lead Guitar Phrasing
Lead guitar phrasing is about ‘how’ you play the notes of your guitar licks as you solo over guitar chord changes. And if there was one skill that makes or breaks your ability to play lead guitar like a pro…
Lead guitar solo phrasing is it.
How do you work on your lead guitar phrasing?
Here is one simple way (that will quickly level up your guitar solos):
Step 1: Choose any 3-4 notes that are in key.
Step 2: Play the notes over and over and - on each repetition - refine how you are playing the lick using vibrato, string bends, slides, double stops, rakes and pinch harmonics.
Believe it or not, you can spend a good hour practicing lead guitar phrasing this way and not get bored.
Watch this video to see this process in action:
Here are a few tips on how to do each of the lead guitar phrasing techniques more expressively and emotionally:
String Bends: make sure your fretting hand thumb is wrapped around the fretboard. Use your entire arm to bend the string (through a rotation similar to turning a door knob), not your fingers.
Use your picking hand to mute the lower (in pitch) guitar strings when you bend strings in your guitar licks. This is called thumb muting.
If you have a hard time bending strings in tune as you solo over guitar chord changes, do this:
- Tune your guitar down a whole step and/or practice doing string bends only the distance of a half step (1 fret). This reduces the strength demands on your fretting hand and helps you to play lead guitar like a pro as you practice bending strings.
- Play the note you’ll be bending up to as an unbent note (to get its sound into your ear). Then bend into it from 1 or 2 frets below. Do the motion slowly and stop when you hear the string reach the target note.
Vibrato: Think of vibrato as a series of rhythmic bends applied to a note. The key to doing vibrato well is to keep it controlled and in tune.
Here is how to fix the most common vibrato mistakes, so you can make your guitar licks and guitar solos sound better and play lead guitar like a pro:
Lead guitar slides: The main thing to remember about slides is: there are many different ways to slide into notes (not just one). The most important lead guitar slides that will make your guitar solos sound better are:
Ascending slides: as the name implies - you slide into a note from a lower pitch as you solo over guitar chord changes.
Descending slides: here, you slide into a note from a higher pitch as you solo over guitar chord changes.
Backslides: to do a backslide, play a note, slide up (or down) in pitch by a few frets and quickly slide back to the note you started from. A backslide is ONE lead guitar event (not 3 events). Watch this video to see how to use backslides in your guitar licks and guitar solos.
Superslides - these are lead guitar slides that span an octave or more on your guitar. Using superslides will help you to easily play lead guitar like a pro.
Rearticulation slides - this means you play a note and immediately slide into that same note (rearticulating it with a lead guitar slide).
Tip #5 For Helping You Solo Over Guitar Chord Changes: Combine Melody With Fast Playing
Your ability to combine melodic playing with shredding (as you solo over guitar chord changes) is the holy grail of your ability to play lead guitar like a pro.
How do you do it?
This lead guitar video walks you through the simple process:
Now that you know the basics of how to solo over guitar chord changes, let’s go deeper. I’d like to show you how to easily add fire and emotion to any guitar lick without playing anything fast or difficult. I show you how in my free eGuide: “The Secret To Adding Fire And Emotion To Any Guitar Lick (Even If You Can’t Play Guitar Fast Yet)” Download it today and discover the lead guitar soloing secrets most guitarists will never know.
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