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The Importance and Value of Learning Lead Guitar Solos

By Klaus Crow 4 Comments

Bigstock photo
When I first started playing electric guitar (4 years after I picked up the acoustic guitar) all I wanted to do is learn those almighty guitar solos of Slash, Nuno Bettencourt, Joe Satriani, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Scott Henderson, Marty Friedman, Kirk Hammet, Dimebag Darrel and other great legends.

It was the best thing ever. Unawarely I built my guitar vocabulary like that.

After a while fellow musicians, guitar teachers and guitar players from around town that I looked up to were advising me to develop my own style and learn to improvise. It was the obvious next step to becoming a better guitar player.

I practiced scales, sequences, licks, arpeggios, intervals, just about anything I could get my hands on and continued to work on my improvisation skills. Freedom on the fretboard at last.

Then I started playing in bands doing covers, creating and performing my own music. Playing some more and more and more. Time went by and I gained a lot of gigging experience, developed my own style, learned a lot of new things, but on the other side I also stopped building and expanding my guitar vocabulary.

Years later I got back into transcribing and practicing solos by other guitar heros that found my interest. It was refreshing, inspiring and opened up new worlds. It took my soloing to other places and improved my playing once again.

To gain input and keep educating yourself you got to keep practicing, studying and memorizing guitar solos regularly. It’s like reading a new book or watching a brilliant movie to fuel your inspiration.

Besides that there are also other important reasons and benefits to learning lead guitar solos.

Check them out:Continue Reading

How to Improve Your Lead Guitar Phrasing

By Klaus Crow 12 Comments

Photo by Bigstock photo
For guitar players who starting out learning to improvise, it can be quite a challenge.

Playing a bunch of notes within the pentatonic scale (or any scale in that matter) is one thing, but being able to really tell a story with those notes is a complete different thing.

Because that’s what phrasing is all about: “How you tell a story”.

If you’re telling a story you want to draw the audience’s attention. We’ve all come across those boring teachers in the classroom who can’t keep your attention for more than 30 seconds. They talk in the same low monotone voice on and on and on and on. It’s almost like they don’t even breath. They probably don’t. :)

The fact that they can’t keep your attention has nothing to do with the subject, but it has to do with how they present the subject, how they bring you the story. And they forget the most important thing. They have to bring the story to life!

To bring a story to life you want to hear and feel the passion. You can hear that in the way people speak. When people get excited about stuff they tend to raise their voice. If they want to tell you a secret or gossip they start to whisper. If something is really important we will emphasize particular words. When someone tells you a creepy story they’ll start to talk slower, fuel their voice by fire and when the story gets really exciting they’ll suddenly pause to get you to the edge of your seat and then relentlessly take you to the climax.

There are dozen ways to draw the listener’s ears and fortunately for a lot of people that goes without saying. Most people will talk passionately about their new bought car, their cool job or an attractive person of the opposite sex. The same applies to music. You want to hear the same excitement in your soloing. To do so you have to learn great phrasing.

Phrasing is not about what you play but how you play it!

Let’s see what you can do to improve your phrasing and make your playing come alive:
Continue Reading

50 of The Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time

By Klaus Crow 85 Comments

Photo by Bigstock photo
We all have our personal favorite “greatest guitar solo of all time ever”. And the beauty is, you can’t argue with that. Everyone has a different taste.

But fortunately we still do. :) We like to argue which is the best, most beautiful, wicked, coolest or melodic solo ever played, because it’s fun and we like to share our taste and passion for music.

So I created a list with 50 of the greatest, most beautiful, well known solos of all time in no particular order. Of course there are some personal favorites in there as well. Still I find it hard to say which one I like best if I had to choose only one. It’s comparing apples and oranges. One of my all time favorites which is not on the list by the way is the solo of Rest in peace by Nuno Bettencourt from the band Extreme. But then again what can beat Hotel California by the Eagles or… ah never mind, looking at the list below I can’t possibly stick to a top 3. And why should I?

That’s why it’s not a top 50 list. And as I said earlier “in no particular order”, although it could be :). Of course the list isn’t complete either, far from it.

So what is it then? Well it’s a list to inspire, to motivate and to enjoy. A list that makes you want to pick up your guitar and learn that awesome solo. To bring back memories and let your guitar playing be influenced by all those beautiful melodies and masterpieces.

Let’s take a look, have a listen and create some new ideas for your practice workout, adding some stunning guitar licks, new techniques or a complete solo to your repertoire.

All the songs are attached to a link which sends you straight to the solo part on youtube. Try to refresh the youtube page if doesn’t work straight away. In the worst case scenario skip to the solo part manually.

Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Enjoy and have fun!

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