Basics of soloing.

Anyone who wants to play the guitar has always dreamed of becoming a lead guitarist. Singing along while strumming the chords is good and gives us pleasure, however playing a melodious solo over some chord progressions is something else.

In this post, I will be talking about the basics of playing a solo. Before anyone reads this post, one should be aware of making chords and also about chords in C major.

If you are aware of these concepts, then it will be easy for you understand this guitar lesson. I will be covering the most basic thing about playing solos.

I will be talking about the C Major scale but this lesson is applicable in all the keys. We should also know that a solo sounds good only when there is some nice rhythm guitar playing in the background.

Some of you may wonder, What is the 'nice rhythm guitar playing'? It's the chord progressions that are played by the rhythm guitarist.

All the songs have a chord progression. This can be a simple one or a complicated one.

Just for convenience, we will stick to a simple chord progression. Lets take the following three major chords which are in the key of C:

G Major.
F Major.
C Major.

If someone is playing these chords and you want to play a solo over it, you can play the C major scale

It may not sound completely right but the solo will fit with these chord progressions. The reason is because these chords are derived from the C Major scale. We have harmonized the C Major scale to get these chords.

As this a basic lesson, you can play the basic C scale and try to come out with a true original solo. This may be difficult in the start but some of you may be able to pull this off immediately.

One thing important in music according to me is experimentation. You have to experiment for years to come out with your own sound.

One problem may arise is that you may not have another guitarist friend who can play the guitar chords, so that you can play the solo.

To get around this road block, you can use the sound recorder option in your computer if you are using a Windows computer. You can play the chords mentioned above and can record it on your computer. When you have done this, you can play the recorded chord progressions and then play your solo over it. You will then experience the joy of making your first guitar solo.