Are you ready to take your guitar skills to the next level? Ayla Tesler-Mabe shares her personal approach to guitar solos on six different levels. By the end, you\u2019ll feel more comfortable improvising on the guitar and come up with some pretty cool licks. Let\u2019s dive in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Level 1 – The Pentatonic Scale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the context of this lesson, we\u2019ll be focusing on a 12-bar blues in the key of A. It\u2019s the type of music that sits between major and minor sounds and gives you more opportunity to play minor and major pentatonic scales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Start with the root note to build the A Minor Pentatonic Scale<\/strong>. If you move the same scale down three frets, you\u2019ll be playing the major scale. Any notes from the minor scale are safe to play to get a bluesy sound. The same goes for when you switch between major and minor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pentatonic scale is always a great place to begin because you\u2019ll get the most mileage out of it and will implement it in your playing forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Level 2 – Building A Lick Vocabulary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When most people start to internalize the pentatonic scale, they find it just sounds like a scale instead of a musical phrase. What helps remedy this is building a vocabulary of licks you can find online or in songs you listen to and implement them into your playing. They inspire you to find your sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t always have to be within the minor pentatonic scale, you can find other licks outside of the scale. This can be a great way to add sophisticated tones into your playing without necessarily knowing what you\u2019re doing and add nice color to your solos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Level 3 – Adding Color (understanding what to add)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anytime you play minor or major pentatonic, you can add a \u201cblues\u201d note to turn it into the blues scale and gives you another note to target when improvising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example is Dorian Mode<\/strong>. And all you have to do to turn the scale into the mode is by adding two notes and continue up the scale. Without fully playing Dorian, playing one of those notes you targeted can become more sophisticated and colorful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trust your ear and try exploring notes outside of the scale. If they sound good to you, then they\u2019re probably good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n