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I’ll bet that you didn’t know that the solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”… from the Beatles, was played by Eric Clapton. Its one of the most beautiful solos of all time I think. It’s just impossible to get much better than that. And if you want to play a solo like that, then you’ll have to practice your scales as you learn guitar solos. Now it’s true, chords are hugely important, and you’ll probably begin with chords.

But scales are just something else! If there ever was an important scale that needed to be mastered.. it would be the Blues Scale. Its one of the critical scales to know. It’s a scale with a little change from most other scales. That change is one little extra note. Its called the “blues note”. After you’ve mastered the Blues Scale, you’ll now have the tools to master many tunes out there. And improvisation will come more naturally to you. Your solos will take on a different feeling. With all of that behind us, lets try some things out.

So lets figure out how to play a basic Blues Scale that will help you easily learn guitar solos. Start out with your first finger pressing down on all six strings. Now put your second finger on the fifth string, the third finger on the third, fourth and fifth string. Now put your fourth finger on the first, second, third and sixth string..

Now do it forwards and backwards. And when you do it, pick downwards and upwards. Keep doing that. This picking technique is called Alternate picking. Aright, ready? Now play with it a little bit. Challenge yourself. Noodle around with it, and see what you can discover with it. Since you’ve now got the Blues Scale behind you, its time to step things up a notch. Start to learn guitar solos with different notes you’ve just picked up from the scale. Stick a bunch of these same notes together in different sequences and you’ve created … your own licks!

At the same time, you might want to try different positions of the different scales. This gives you more options to create more solos! Another thing, is you can experiment with different techniques to make your licks sound better. Try some slides, vibrato, and ….well… a little shredding maybe? Another cool idea is to look up licks online and try playing them. Next, you may want to start trying to play solo with some music playing in the background. This is what I did when I taught myself to play. Just download a 12 bar blues audio file, and just start playing to it.

When improvising licks, you should avoid the common pitfall of playing too many notes. Keep in mind that the best guitarists do not want to impress their audience with their virtuosity, but seek to communicate feeling using their playing.

Want to find out more about how to Learn Guitar Solos, then visit Soudai Kunai’s site on how to choose the best lead guitar lessons for your needs.