Chords for How To Play Rock Lead Guitar Solos

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Go ahead and play something. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _
[G] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ First [F] problem you have is
[C#] pitch range problems.
It sounds like all the same kind of stuff for a few reasons.
The number one reason is you keep going up and down the same_
It's like walking on this carpet.
If you keep walking on this carpet in the same path long enough,
you'll wear a hole right through it.
Okay, you got the whole room.
So go over there, go over there, go over here.
Okay, so that's first thing.
We got to think about pitch range.
You're doing_
everything you play was in two scale positions, right? _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [N]
You're back there.
Okay, all that's cool, but you can't stay there forever.
Think of the stairway to heaven solo.
Where does it start?
_ Where does it end? _ _ _
So
that's not an accident.
Okay, that didn't happen by mistake.
All right, so even Jimmy Page, he was thinking about pitch range, at least in that solo, right?
Yeah, it wasn't an accident that that ends in the climactic point.
Right there.
No, right.
So we need to think about that sort of stuff, too.
You got the whole guitar.
Okay, so we want to use that.
All right.
So I'm probably just using that kind of as a comfort zone.
I know.
I know why you use it.
Step out of there.
Same reason why everybody does.
Same reason why everybody goes to that pentatonic box.
Why they all do it.
It's not because that position sounds better than the others.
It's because that's what we learn first.
So that's what we're gonna, you know, that's what we're gonna do.
So you got to break out of that.
And the second thing is you're playing lots of notes.
All right, and I don't mean to imply that playing fast is bad.
It's really cool.
But playing lots of notes when we're trying to just say a few things is not really_
Playing more notes is not the solution to the problem.
Less is more.
No, less is not more.
Okay.
Less is not more, and more is not more.
Okay.
_ It's just that you're playing something.
I think that you play something and I think that you think to yourself,
that's okay.
And then you play something else to try and get something a little better and that's okay.
And then you play something else to try and get something, you know, try something do a little bit more.
That's okay.
You just keep saying that's okay.
And you keep moving on and on and on, just noodling through notes.
You can say a lot with a little bit of notes, and you can say a lot with a lot of notes,
but you're not saying a lot with anything right now.
The reason why is because you're using notes, or you're using the possibility of playing
more notes to try and get your way out of the situation of the playing not being as
expressive as it can be.
Play a little phrase and make people feel it.
_ [G] _ _
_ [A] _ _ The hesitation here, [Gm] _ _
[G#] that told me that you were thinking about what to do.
You didn't intend to do this.
[D] _ _ [Bm] _ _ [A] You were thinking about what you're going to do next.
_ I know that.
I can read your mind because I hear your mind come out of your guitar.
I know when you're thinking, what do I do next?
Where do I go from here?
I know the difference between that and this.
_ [D] _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ I meant to play all those notes.
I'm not saying that was a great phrase or anything, but every note I intended you to hear.
That's not the case when you played.
You were thinking about what comes next.
And then when you weren't sure how to figure that out, your solution was, I'll just play more notes.
That's the problem.
That's the problem.
So when you're at home and you're practicing and you're working on your improvising, if
you keep saying to yourself, well I'm just going to keep playing, you're not going to
get any better.
Because that is not the solution.
The solution is, oh wait a minute.
Let's go back to what I just did and let's make that sound like something.
You can make good music out of anything.
You think of the worst pile of crap notes you can think of and we can make it cool. _
But we have to try to do that.
We can't just move on, move on, move on, move on.
So let's go back to the first [Gm] _ _ _ [D] note we started off with.
_ [B] _ _ [A] I want you to think of variations that you can make on those three notes.
_ _ _ [A#m] _ _
_ [B] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G#m] _ _ [E] Now what you should say when you're at home and you practice that, [N] you should not say,
okay I'm going to do something else now.
You should say, no, I'm going to stay right here and I'm going to choke out of that every
drop of feeling that I can.
If that takes all day, then we stay there all day.
Does that make sense?
[A] So now let's think.
_ _ You can _ play that. _
_ [C#] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
You know it's almost.
_ [D] Right here, play that note.
[C#] Thank you.
Now bend up, [Bm] _ bend down.
[F] Now this note.
[A] _ _ _
_ [Am] _ So [A] right now you play this. _ _
_ [F#] It's like [D#] you ran.
There's no life left, okay, so we have to say okay that kind of sucked
So we're gonna make this totally killer
[A] Okay, we have to put the energy back into it
Place where you ran out of energy was at the end the last two notes _ _
_ [C#] _ _ [B] _ That part [G] was the sucker part those two notes
_ [D] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ [A#] _ _ _ _ [A] a _
_ [C] _ [B] _ _ _ [C] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [B] _ Lot of different possibilities, but you got to make something come out of these notes.
Yeah, all right
_ [F] _ _
_ _ The execution wasn't that great, but the idea was and that's the important part
_ [A] _ _ [C#] _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [D] _ _
_ [C] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ The last note wasn't but this was [A] good _
_ [B] _ I
Got this phrase it's kind of coming along now, but I got this problem at the end
So what we're gonna do we're gonna isolate this end and we're gonna say _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ _ [E] Whatever we have to do what we have to [G#] sit there all day and milk this you got it.
I mean, this is what you have to _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _