Creative Ways To Play Guitar Licks In Your Guitar Solos Like A Pro
Emotion To Any Guitar Lick
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In this lead guitar article…
I show you easy ways to use guitar licks you know in your guitar solos, even if the songs you're soloing over vary drastically in:
– style
– key
– feel
– tempo
… or any other musical element.
This ability opens up a lot of new doors for you as a guitar player…
… and gives you a ton of freedom to play guitar solos.
(As well as improvise on stage without running out of ideas or awkwardly repeating yourself.)
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.
To begin…
Check out the simple lead guitar lesson that shows you how to easily apply any guitar lick you know in any musical context:
Now, let's go deeper.
Here are 5 more ways to become more creative with any guitar lick you know and use it in any guitar solo you play or improvise:
Lead Guitar Practice Tip #1: Learn To Sequence Guitar Licks
How do you learn to sequence guitar licks in your lead guitar solos?
Answer: you move the lick up (or down) through the shapes of the scale the guitar lick is from.
This kind of guitar practice does a few things for you as a guitar player:
– it helps you play the same lick several times without it 'sounding' like you're playing the same lead guitar idea in your guitar solo. This helps you get more creative mileage out of a single guitar lick.
– it buys you more time to think (about what guitar lick to play next in your guitar solo). Sequencing the guitar lick doesn't require much creative thinking (assuming you know your fretboard well – see below). This means, while your fingers are playing the notes… your brain can be making musical choices about where to take your guitar solo next (after the sequence is over).
– it helps you control pitch range creatively in your guitar solos. For example: if your original guitar lick is in a lower pitch range (and you're playing it over a chord progression that is 'also' in a lower pitch range)… your guitar lick would sound better if you moved it up to the higher register. (Which you can do by sequencing it up the neck.)
This would make the guitar lick you're playing cut through the mix in your guitar solo (and make you sound like a pro guitar player).
– it can build (or resolve) musical tension in your guitar solo. If you are sequencing your guitar lick up in pitch (towards the higher frets), your guitar solo often sounds more (musically) tense.
On the flipside, sequencing the guitar lick down in pitch tends to resolve tension.
Watch this video to see guitar lick sequencing in action:
Question: But Tom Hess, what if I don't know all the positions of the scale? How do I go about practicing this skill in my guitar practice?
Answer: First, know that there are as many patterns to play a scale on guitar as there are notes in the scale. So, if you're playing a C major scale (which has 7 notes: C D E F G A B), there are 7 patterns for playing the C major scale on guitar, each one starting from one of the notes.
Your first guitar practice step is to learn what the shapes are. Pro tip: do not use the CAGED shapes (that have 3 notes on five of the six strings and 2 notes on one of the strings).
And this is just one of many reasons to stay away from the CAGED system in general due to its many limitations for you as a guitar player.
Instead of these inferior scale patterns, play using only 3-note-per-string shapes (that have 3 notes on every string).
Another tip that will help you as a guitar player: practice memorizing scale patterns away from the guitar. This means: put your fretting hand on your picking hand's forearm. Then, mime your fingers up and down the strings, as if you're playing the scale patterns.
This is a great guitar practice trick that will help your lead guitar playing.
Lead Guitar Practice Tip #2: Vary The Rhythm Of Your Guitar Licks
Try this interesting test:
Take any guitar solo you've ever written or improvised… and transcribe just its rhythm. Ignore the notes and the phrasing of the notes… and just think about how interesting the rhythm is.
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Most lead guitar players completely ignore the rhythm of the notes in their guitar licks and solos.
They focus instead on 'what' notes to play, or (if they're good) focus on phrasing. This is why, if you just listen to a rhythm of most guitar solos, the rhythm sounds boring and repetitive.
Truly great players focus on the notes and the phrasing as well as the rhythm.
This is what makes their guitar solos sound more expressive and memorable.
Here are some ways to make the rhythm of your guitar licks more interesting:
1. Create a rhythm pattern and improvise many licks with it. Be creative and come up with the coolest rhythm you can think of first. You can do it in a program like Guitar Pro, or simply with pencil and paper.
Then, improvise a guitar lick using that rhythm. Ornament the notes with the best phrasing and vibrato you can think of.
2. Take any guitar lick you know and vary its rhythm. Challenge yourself to create at least 20 variations using only rhythm (keep the notes exactly the same).
Pro tip: do this with licks from guitar solos you know. Then, see how the solo sounds and feels when you change the rhythm of even one of the guitar licks. This makes it more fun to play old guitar solos and turns you into a more creative lead guitar player.
3. Use rubato. Rubato means: stretching the time of the notes and suddenly speeding up or slowing down without playing in strict time (or using strict divisions of a beat).
Watch this video to see what lead guitar rubato sounds like:
Lead Guitar Practice Tip #3: Practice Phrase Refinement
Just like varying the rhythm of your guitar licks helps you play them in a variety of contexts, so does varying the phrasing of the notes.
The best way for any guitar player to practice phrasing is through refinement.
Like this:
1. Play any short guitar lick (4-6 notes long).
2. Pause (for 3–5 seconds).
3. During the pause, ask yourself how expressive the lick sounds on a scale of 1-10.
If the lick sounds like anything less than a 10, use the pause to think about how you might make it sound more expressive.
For example: think about how you might use vibrato differently… or apply it to different notes. Think about different ways to use string bends (either bend into different notes or bend strings differently)…
Think about different ways to do slides (e.g. ascending slides, descending slides, backslides, superslides, re-articulation slides or combinations of these)
Think about different ways to articulate the notes (pick all the notes or pick only some of them and do hammer ons and pull offs on the other notes).
Consider adding double stops, pinch harmonics or string rakes to some of the notes.
4. Play your guitar lick again with the adjustment(s) you decided to add.
Repeat steps 2-4.
The more you practice guitar lick (and guitar solo) refinement, the more expressive you become as a guitar player and the easier it becomes to apply guitar licks you know in a variety of lead guitar contexts.
Bonus tips for making your lead guitar phrasing sound better:
– the faster the tempo of the song you're playing your guitar solo over, the wider it should be.
– if you struggle to bend strings in tune, play the note you intend to bend up to as an unbent note first (to get its sound into your ear). Then, slowly do the string bend until the string reaches the target pitch.
– get really good at controlling string noise during string bends and vibrato. (Noise control should be a staple in your lead guitar practice.) Make sure your picking hand stays on the strings when you're bending strings (do not let it come up away from the strings) and use the thumb (of your picking hand) to mute string noise, like this:
Use your fretting hand's index finger to mute the higher (in pitch, aka: thinner) strings.
You can also mute the higher strings using the fingers of your picking hand that aren't used to hold the guitar pick (by lightly touching the higher strings with them).
Work on these string noise control techniques during your guitar practice and your lead guitar playing will sound a lot cleaner.
Lead Guitar Practice Tip #4: Analyze Your Favorite Players' Guitar Solos
This is a fantastic way to learn how to apply guitar licks you know in any lead guitar context.
Do this: make a list of guitar players who are known for using their signature trademark guitar licks in their solos (over a variety of songs at different tempos and feels).
Great examples of guitar players who do this (very well) include: Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore.
Listen to their guitar solos and make notes of what licks they use in different contexts and how they are varying them each time they do.
Ask yourself lead guitar analysis questions like:
1. What is different about the phrasing of the guitar lick in this context vs. the last context I heard it played in?
2. How is the vibrato being used?
3. How is articulation different (if it is different)?
4. How is the rhythm different in this iteration of the guitar lick?
5. What is different about the pitch range the guitar lick is played in? Is the lick played in the low(er) pitch range of the guitar with the backing track also being in the lower register? Or is it played higher/lower on the neck relative to the pitch range of the chords the guitar player is soloing over?
This analysis will help you vary your own guitar licks during your lead guitar practice (when you're working on applying guitar licks you know in a variety of guitar soloing contexts).
Lead Guitar Practice Tip #5: Train Your Musical Ear
The big secret that makes it easy for you to apply any gitar lick you know in a new context is to train your musical ear.
No, you don't need to have perfect pitch (or even close to it). But you do need the ability to:
1. Hear notes in your head and know where to find them on guitar.
2. Predict how a given note will feel over a chord when you play it.
Watch this guitar soloing lesson that shows you how to develop this skill (without perfect pitch):
Now that you know how to get better at playing lead guitar, I want to help you master the rest of your guitar playing, so you can reach your goals and impress everyone who hears you play guitar. I show you how in my personalized Breakthrough Guitar Lessons. Unlike generic, one-size-fits-all guitar courses, my lessons are customized to you, your skill level, your strengths and weaknesses, and who you want to become as a guitar player. I’ve taught thousands of guitar players to play like pros (while practicing less than 1 hour per day) and I can help you too. Click the button on the banner below to learn more.
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