Improving Your

Guitar Phrasing—part 1
by Nick Layton
Many times you will hear or read about professional guitar players talking about
the elusive topic of phrasing. Guitar teachers talk about it in their lessons and
books. We hear about how important it is to have good phrasing and to spend
time working on it. Well, what the heck is phrasing anyway? And, if we can define
it, why is it important? Before we continue, test yourself here to see if YOU really
know what phrasing is and how it needs to be practiced.

My aim with this article is to clear up any confusion about what phrasing is and,
more importantly, show why it is critically important to you as a guitar player to
develop it. Finally, I will show you some very easy and practical ways to
dramatically improve your improvisations and guitar solos almost immediately—
just by changing how you approach the guitar and how you think about phrasing.

I once tried explaining this subject of phrasing on the guitar to a non-musician

friend of mine. She had heard someone refer to a guitar solo as having “good
phrasing”, and she wanted to understand what it meant. Musical lingo doesn’t
usually work with non-musicians, so I had to think of a way to relate it to her in
simple, everyday terms. After giving it some thought, I decided the best
explanation was by way of making an analogy to human speech—something
most everyone can relate to, right?

When we speak, we use words to convey meaning to the listener. We combine

these words to make sentences. But we don’t only use words and sentences.
How we say those words can make a huge difference in both the meaning of
what we are saying and the listener’s interpretation of what is being said. If we
are angry, we might raise our voice, or if we are sad we might whisper…we may
pause for effect or put emphasis on a certain word. We use inflections to give
more meaning to the things we say. This process we use when we speak is
called phrasing. We all have our own phrasing style or way of speaking and
using words. Most often this happens naturally and unconsciously.

In my analogy to my friend, I explained that when I improvise a guitar solo I use

the same process I use when I’m speaking with someone. When I am speaking, I
first think about what I want to say based on how I’m feeling and the
circumstances, then I draw upon my vocabulary of words and put them together
to form sentences (or phrases). I use inflections, dynamics, and pauses to make
my points clear. The goal is to fully express what I want to say to the listener.
When I play a guitar solo, the same process happens… but instead of using
words I use musical pitches, rhythm, articulation, and dynamics. I first think about
what I want to “say” on my guitar, then I draw on my vocabulary of ideas and
techniques to play the notes based on how I’m feeling as well as the musical
context. But I don’t just play the notes. I might play faster to increase the
intensity, or maybe I’ll hang on to a note and give it a wide vibrato to add
emotion.

It should be clear by now that phrasing, whether in speech or guitar playing, is

not so much what is being said but how it is said… or played.

So, how does all this relate to you becoming a better guitar player?

In my opinion, a guitar players’ ability to phrase is perhaps one of the greatest

skills he/she can possess because it is directly related to self-expression.
Further, phrasing is one of the least developed skills most guitar players have
today. As a guitar teacher, I have noticed that most players are out of balance.
As they progress to intermediate/advanced status, they usually have good
technique but underdeveloped phrasing skills. I have put my students on the spot
asking them to play from their heart and improvise a guitar solo. Know what
usually happens? They stare back at me with this blank look of confusion and
disbelief that I would ask them such a thing. After the blank stare, I’ll usually
gently encourage them to just play something. Normally what comes out (if
anything) is some mindless exercise or lick.

Herein lies a big problem that most guitar players face in this day and age of
internet tab and short attention spans — they don’t know how to express
themselves. If you get this, and you understand that self-expression is perhaps
the greatest musical goal you can have, you can avoid the fate most of the tab-
and-fingers-only players will meet… most of them will either give up from
frustration or boredom. After all, how fun is music and playing guitar if you aren’t
expressing yourself?

Technique is very important, make no mistake; and learning other people’s songs
from tablature has its place. But self-expression happens when your heart, your
emotions, your brain, your ears, your thoughts, your knowledge, and your fingers
all come together simultaneously. This is a skill you can develop. But in order to
do so you must change not only how and what you practice, but also how you
think.

It is my belief that, as a whole, guitar players have the least developed phrasing
skills of any musicians. The reason I bring this up is because I think there are a
few very obvious reasons why this problem exists, and that by understanding the
problem we can begin to fix it.

To illustrate what is at the heart of the problem, let’s examine how a saxophone
player phrases and compare that to how most guitar players phrase. A
saxophone player (or any wind/brass instrument) generates sound by using
his/her wind (or breath) which comes from their lungs. This lends itself to a very
natural way of phrasing. Why? Because they have to use their wind sparingly or
they will run out of breath. There is only so much wind the lungs can generate so
they must choose how they are going to use it. They may pause during a musical
phrase to get their breath before continuing, and they will usually play a fast
passage with one breath before pausing.

This is just like speech. We have to pause when we speak (to catch our breath)
and we need to pause to let our words sink in. Most horn players have developed
a very natural phrasing style because of the inherent limitations of breathing to
sound the notes. Their phrases have beginnings and endings as well as natural
timing; they also have lots of dynamics and nuance in their phrasing.

Could it be that guitar players generally have less developed phrasing skills
because we usually learn to play with our fingers first? We learn finger exercises
and licks and things to help us develop our technique, and these things can be
good, but this doesn’t really show us how to phrase and express ourselves. Horn
players are doing this from day one.
How many guitarists do you know who rattle off notes incessantly without
pausing at all? Some guitarists get a bad rap for noodling too much…and rightly
so! Their playing has no natural phrasing to it - no space to allow their notes to
sink in to the listener.

Ok, so we have talked about what phrasing is and why it is important, and have
determined that most guitar players need improvement in this area. So, what can
we do to change this? The good news is that I think we can start improving our
phrasing immediately and drastically just by changing the way we think.

The first thing we can do is simply start equating our playing with speech. Think
about all the things that make up speech and try to implement them into your
playing. Think in terms of sentences when you play a phrase. Try pausing more
often as you would if you are speaking. Think about how you can use your
instrument to make the notes sound like you are speaking (ie: use inflections,
dynamics/volume, vibrato, bending, legato, staccato, etc.)
Secondly, listen to great horn or saxophone players. Notice how their phrasing is
usually superior to most guitar players. See if you can apply what you hear to
your own playing in your own style.

Thirdly, listen to guitar players who do have great phrasing. Study them, analyze
them and use what you learn for yourself. In “Improving Your Phrasing - Part II,”
we will look at some specific examples of great phrasing by several guitar players
who excel in this area.

In closing, I’d like to point out that if you have begun thinking about these things,
you are already ahead of most guitar players. You are on your way to learning
how to express yourself. However, it is not enough to know what phrasing is or
even to know some ways you can improve your phrasing. The key is application.
Knowledge isn’t enough; you must begin to put this knowledge into action. My
forthcoming articles will focus on this application process. Also, notice that in
the survey mentioned at the top of the article most of the questions revolved
around action steps (what you do/practice), rather than the mental concepts
(what you “know”).

Until next time, I’ll leave you all with this quote by master motivator Napoleon Hill:
“HAPPINESS is found in DOING not merely in Possessing”

Improving Your
Guitar Phrasing—part 2
by Nick Layton
In my first article, “Improving Your Phrasing, Part 1,” I explained what phrasing is
and why it is important for guitarists to develop this critical skill. I also showed
you a few ways in which you could start the process of improving your own skills.

Hopefully, you’ve spent some time thinking about some of the concepts I
presented. I gave you a brief list of things you could do to begin applying the
concepts and ideas. In this article, I want to dig a bit deeper into these things,
and present some other ideas as well that will hopefully be helpful to you in your
quest for greater self-expression.

The idea of equating your guitar phrasing with your phrasing patterns when you
speak is a very simple concept. But don’t let its simplicity fool you. This is a very
powerful idea that can transform the way you play. Let’s look at a couple of
specific ways in which you can use this idea to your advantage.
Breathing your phrases: one of the things that comes natural to us as we speak
is the necessity to pause from time to time to catch our breath. It isn’t often that
you hear someone rattling off word after word, sentence after sentence, without
stopping to catch their breath. However, it does happen and most of us have
been on the receiving end of a one-way conversation like that at some point.
How did it make you feel? In my own experience, I feel irritated with those types
of encounters. No-one likes to be talked “at”. Here’s the point I’m trying to
make: How many guitar-players talk “at” their listeners instead of trying to
communicate something to them? It would appear that, for some guitarists, the
whole goal of their “communication” is to dominate the “conversation,” rattling off
every technique known to man at warp speed and without pause. I wonder if
these players understand what effect this type of phrasing has on their listeners.

Contrast that approach with a mature player who is, in fact, a virtuoso, but elects
to communicate with his audience. For sure, there will be flurries of wonderfully
advanced playing – fast runs, lightning-quick arpeggios, etc. – but this will be
balanced with musical passages containing beautiful vibrato, emotional note-
bending, and rhythmic variation.

I’m not saying that fast, virtuoso playing is unemotional. It certainly is very
emotional and passionate at times, and is a wonderful tool for self-expression.
However, it is only one piece of the puzzle. One of the biggest problems some
inexperienced players have is that they use their technical skill to cover up their
poorly developed phrasing skills. In other words, they play fast constantly to try
to mask the fact that they lack the necessary skills to truly communicate and
express themselves. This is a shame, but it is correctable.

Okay, so hopefully you’ve decided that you do not want to be a guitarist who
talks “at” his audience with very little to say. Let’s try this breathing exercise
together. The point of this is to demonstrate that there is an inherent natural flow
to effective communication. There must be words, notes, and substance, but
there also must be space and rest.

Step 1: Take a seat in your usual practice space. You should be sitting upright so
that you can breathe properly. Inhale deeply as you would when you are getting
ready to say something important. As you exhale, try and sing a little melody
until you run out of breath. Give this a try before continuing.

Did you do it? Most likely, your melody wasn’t very long. Don’t worry if it wasn’t
the greatest melody in the world. Perhaps it wasn’t even an original melody….
that doesn’t matter.

Step 2: Repeat Step 1 four (4) times in succession. The 1st time, sing a melody.
Then pause, and inhale. As you exhale, make your 2nd melody an attempt to
“answer” your 1st one. The 3rd time, sing another new melody, and the 4th
time, attempt to answer the 3rd melody. This process is called “call and
response.” Many great blues singers and guitarists have mastered this
technique.

If you’ve done this, you now have four (4) bars of naturally-flowing music that you
composed, and you didn’t even touch your guitar.

Practice doing this in as many music situations as possible. Here are a few
possibilities: the next time you are composing a song or melody, try this
breathing method first. Sing your melodies along with the chords. Do this over
and over until you find a melody you like. Then grab your guitar and learn the
notes. Also, be creative with this exercise; don’t just blandly spit out a melody.
Use different rhythmic groupings, inflections, and dynamics. Use your
imagination!

Another valuable thing you can do is study the phrasing styles of other guitarists.
You should also spend time studying artists of other instruments, but for now,
let’s stick to guitarists.

Now that you are more in tune with the elements that make up effective phrasing,
it will be much easier to recognize these elements in the playing of others. Put
on a CD of one of your favorite guitar-players. Choose a solo that you
particularly like. Does the solo have a natural ebb-and-flow to it? Are there fast
and slow passages? Where do the natural pauses occur? Do you feel as if the
player is playing “at” you, or do you feel as if the player is communicating with
you?

Before wrapping this article up, let’s analyze a solo together. Keep in mind that
my observations and thoughts may be different than your own. That’s okay. The
goal is not for you to think like me, but to make your own value judgments based
on what you like and don’t like. As you do this more and more, you’ll find that the
things you like start popping up in your own playing. This is great! You might
want to keep a notebook of your thoughts as you listen to various players. You
will surely get many ideas for your own phrases, just by listening. Sometimes you
may want to transcribe some of the things you like, and other times it’s just cool
to listen and soak it in.

Let’s listen to Eddie Van Halen’s solo in the song “Panama” from the
album 1984. Whether you like Eddie or not is irrelevant to the purpose of this
study. Allow me to make some observations.
 o At (CD time) 2:05, the solo begins with a Chuck Berry-style phrase which has been “Van
Halen’ized”. Notice the bent note at 2:08 which serves as a kind of “pause” before the flurry of
notes to follow from 2:09 to 2:11.
o Notice the bend at 2:11 which is the end of the preceding phrase, and serves as another short
pause in the action.
o The next phrase from 2:12 to 2:15 has all kinds of phrasing ideas, using tapped notes on bends.
o Check out the staccato phrasing and rhythm of the line beginning at 2:16 and leading into the
breakdown section at 2:18.
o From 2:19 to 2:53, we hear Eddie playing some very seductively laid-back phrases, using a mixture
of lead and rhythm guitar passages. Notice the effect this passage has upon you. For me, this
section is perfect, because it balances out all of the many notes that preceded it, and contains
some very vocal-like phrasing.

Eddie’s solo on this song reminds me of what it’s like to take off in an airplane.
At first, there is a lot of speed and excitement, followed by a bit of turbulence until
finally the airplane reaches altitude and levels off.
In the next article we’ll begin exploring how to improve your phrasing by using
advanced technique in a musical, melodic way. See you next time!

I have prepared a FREE text and audio lesson on Phrasing for you. You can
download it now Here.

Improving Your
Guitar Phrasing—part 3
by Nick Layton
Welcome back to part 3 of my series on improving your lead guitar phrasing.
In part 1 and part 2 we explored what phrasing is and why it is important for you
to develop on your path to fully expressing yourself on the instrument. We last
looked at the famous “Panama” solo by Eddie Van Halen as a prime example of
all the great phrasing concepts we’ve been discussing.

Now it’s time to stop talking and start working with some real musical examples.
In this 3rd article we are going to focus on legato phrasing. Before getting to the
examples I want to be clear about exactly what legato means to us in the context
of lead guitar phrasing. Legato means: “In a smooth, flowing manner, without
breaks between notes.” As a rock guitar soloist utilizing hammer-ons, pull-offs,
and sometimes tapping while picking very few notes usually creates this smooth
legato sound. So, in essence, what we are talking about here is phrasing our
solos and improvisations with mainly hammer-ons and pull-offs and picking as
little as is necessary. Legato phrasing sounds very different from staccato
phrasing that has a sharper attack and usually involves picking the majority of
notes. Neither technique is necessarily better than the other; they are simply
different. Think of legato, and all techniques, as tools to explore and use in your
own unique way. As mentioned in previous articles, self-expression is really the
goal of developing your phrasing skills. I think that you’ll find that the legato
technique can be very expressive. So, let’s explore a few specific ways you can
apply legato sounds to various scales, modes, and arpeggios.

We’ll start with our old friend the minor pentatonic scale. This example uses the
A minor pentatonic at the 5th fret. This type of phrase is fairly common and can
be played very fast and fluid. It’s well worth your while to work on legato
sequences like this through all 5 pentatonic patterns. Experiment with picking as
little as possible.

Example 1:

(editor note: I had to squish these graphics a little horizontally to fit on the
website, Nick's graphics from his course are not like this.)

Here is a more adventurous phrase using a different position of the A minor

pentatonic scale with the flatted 5th thrown in for a little extra legato “grease.”

Example 2:

Many great rock players such as Joe Satriani, Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai
have used modal sounds to create some great liquid legato runs. This example
uses a 3 note per string fingering from the E Aeolian mode to create a long run
similar to what John Petrucci of Dream Theater might play. When ascending pick
only when changing to a new string. See if you can play the last descending 7
notes only picking the first note. These kinds of phrases will get your pinky in
shape in a hurry!

Example 3:

This example is a long descending phrase in which only the first note is picked!
Everything else is articulated with the fret hand. Runs like this require great fret
hand accuracy and strength to play cleanly. Pay attention also to muting
unwanted string noise. You might also experiment with playing legato phrases
like this on your front (neck) pick-up for an even warmer sound. This is also in E
minor.

Example 4:

In addition to scales and modes we can also play arpeggios in a legato fashion.
Oftentimes arpeggios are played one note after the other without any deviation in
the order of notes. This can happen a lot when sweep picking arpeggios because
many times the arpeggios are simply played from top to bottom or vice versa.
Here is an example of how you might sequence an A minor 7th arpeggio using
legato for a less predictable sound.
Example 5:

We’ll wrap up this brief look at legato phrasing with an example from the first 11
bars of my solo on “Storming the Castle”, which is the title track from my latest
album Storming the Castle. To download a free mp3 of the full track plus a bonus
mp3 of the backing track for you to jam on send me an email here:

storming@nicklayton.com

Bars 1-3: The solo starts out with a bang with a fast sextuplet phrase combining
tapping and fret hand hammer-ons and pull-offs. For that exotic sound I’m using
the E Phrygian Dominant scale. As always practice slowly and work up to speed
at your own pace. Be sure to mute the open strings to keep this phrase clean
sounding.

Bars 4-5: After the tapping phrase the fret hand shifts immediately up the neck to
play the fast descending legato phrase before finally landing on the E note on the
3rd string with lots of vibrato! Notice the tension that builds at the start of the solo
and the resolution that occurs at the end of this phrase. Tension and release is a
big key to making your solos sound interesting. I’m only picking when changing
strings. Sometimes when I play this live I actually don’t pick anything and let the
fret hand do all the work.

Bars 6-11: Notice the slithery legato phrasing in bars 6 and 7. These are simple
to play but require the proper accents to make the notes pop out a bit more. In
bar 8 I use ascending trills that lead to a descending E major arpeggio in bar 9.
Again, take note of how tension and release is used here. Finally in bars 10 and
11 I keep the legato sound going with slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and a
tapped harmonic to cap things off.
To hear audio examples of many of the phrases in this article as well as learning
much more about what you can do with legato phrasing check out my new
downloadable phrasing course here: Killer Rock Lead Guitar Legato Phrasing

Improving Your
Guitar Phrasing—part 4
5 Steps to Better Phrasing and Cooler Guitar Solos
by Nick Layton
Do you want to be able to express yourself more fully in your lead guitar solos?
Are you struggling to apply all of the licks and techniques you’ve been learning?
Most lead guitarists aren’t lacking for more information. They are lacking the
knowledge and ability to apply what they already know in a meaningful and
expressive way. If this describes you then this article will help shed some light on
how you can end the frustration now and start getting the results you’ve been
wanting!

In my many years of teaching and interacting with other guitarists I have seen the
following scenario happen in various ways more than a few times:
An aspiring lead guitarist (who we’ll call Joe) starts out learning to play by
devouring everything he can find on the Internet and in books related to lead
guitar soloing. Joe is motivated and excited and is progressing at a good pace.
He studies scales, patterns, modes, theory, and learns a lot of licks and solos
from his favorite players. His friends and family are impressed at how fast Joe
has progressed and now Joe wants to start his own band and begin recording his
own music. Joe’s technique is solid. His vocabulary of licks and knowledge of
scales is better than average. He joins a band as the lead guitarist and is thrilled
to have come so far in his playing and is ready to get his new band together and
start performing on stage. But as the band starts rehearsing Joe is having
problems coming up with cool solos for the bands songs. Everything he plays
sounds like patterns and exercises and old cliché’s. All the practicing Joe has
done does not seem to be translating into him being able to create killer solos.
Joe is frustrated and embarrassed! So what does he do? He decides he needs
to practice more and learn more stuff—then he’ll be able to come up with better
solos. But even after trying all of that it’s still not happening. What is Joe doing
wrong and why is he having so much trouble? The problem lies in the fact that
Joe is unable to apply what he already knows to an actual musical situation. In
short, he has practiced all of the right material; he just hasn’t
practiced applying the material.

Hopefully you can see that it’s not enough to just develop your technique and
learn a bunch of licks. Whether you want to form a band or create your own CD
or even just play for your own enjoyment, investing time into finding ways to
implement what you have learned is the key to your success. So, how
can you begin applying the licks, scales and techniques you have been working
so hard on and start creating cooler solos with better phrasing now? Here are 5
action steps you can take immediately:

1. Get 3-5 backing tracks in a style of music you like. Make sure that at least one
track is in the key of A minor. Try and get tracks with different tempos and keys.
These tracks should include at least drums and rhythm guitars and should be at
least a couple minutes long.

2. Gather 5 of your favorite licks. These licks should be fairly short, 8-15 notes or
so. Make sure you can play the licks cleanly and have them memorized.

3. Transpose all the licks into the key of A minor. For example, if you have a lick
in the key of E minor try moving it up 5 frets or back 7 frets.

4. Now, beginning with you’re A minor backing track, play your first lick over the
track. How did it sound? Did it fit? Now try playing your remaining 4 licks over the
same track. How do they sound? Chances are you are going to have to change
something about the original lick to make it “work” over the track. You may have
to adjust the way you phrase the lick. For example, the rhythm of the lick may not
sync up with the track in which case you’ll need to adjust it so it sounds more
natural and fluid. Also, there might be some notes in the lick that don’t sound
good over the track. If this is the case you’ll most likely need to change a note or
two. Many things will most likely need to be adjusted. Everything from the rhythm
of the lick to the width of your vibrato and bends, to the actual notes and speed of
the lick.

5. Once you have adjusted all 5 licks so that they work over the A minor track
begin playing them over the remaining 4 backing tracks. Now you are going to
have to transpose the licks again to whatever key you happen to be playing over.
Typical keys for rock and metal are A minor, B minor, C# minor, D minor, E minor
and F# minor. Getting familiar with these keys is very important. Go through the
exact same process with each lick over each track, adjusting as needed.

This entire process is what is called applied practice. Going through these 5
steps may be slow and difficult at first but the results over time will amaze you. If
you practice this way consistently you will eventually get to the point where you
can play any lick you know in just about any key or tempo that you want. In our
hypothetical example above these are the phrasing and soloing skills that Joe
needed. Learning more licks or improving his technique by practicing more was
not the answer to creating killer solos for his bands music. And it’s not the
answer for you either. Technique is important and broadening your vocabulary is
important but they are useless unless you can apply them to real music. Start
improving your lead guitar phrasing and soloing today by going through these 5
steps and watch your skills skyrocket.

To get more help with creating great guitar solos and improving your phrasing
skills check out these free guitar solo tips.
©2009 Nick Layton
All Rights Reserved
Used By Permission

Visit NickLayton.com join my free newsletter to receive free lessons, backing

tracks and much more! Send your questions and comments to: nick@nickla

Jamming With a Purpose

Improving Your
Lead Guitar Solos
by Nick Layton
(To get a free E-book containing audio and tablature examples from this
article go here)

One of the questions I get asked by guitar students is “what should I be

practicing to get better at my phrasing and overall improvisational skills”?
Usually this type of question comes from intermediate to advancing level
students who have been playing a few years and are seeking help because of
one primary reason: The way they are currently practicing is not producing the
results they want.

I think a large part of the problem has to do with a general approach to practicing
lead guitar that tends to be very focused on developing technique only. Just read
through any guitar players forum and you’ll see an over abundance of topics all
about technique. Before I continue let’s be clear: having great technique is a very
good thing! I’m all for practicing and improving your technique and I do it myself
everyday. The issue that many guitarists are having now is that they are unable
to apply the technique they have in a way that actually sounds like music instead
of exercises. Frustration rises because all that hard work with the metronome
does not seem to be paying off when it comes time to actually improvise your
own solo and express yourself. The problem is in translating the technique into
music.

But an over emphasis on technique is only one of the reasons why our practicing
is not leading to better improvisational skills. Most guitarists realize that in order
to improvise well they will need to study a variety of subjects. Because different
areas like technique, improvisation and theory are often practiced in isolation
they never really become integrated together as a complete musical package.
This is a problem because in order to play music well, they must become
integrated together. As lead guitarists it is necessary to be able to put things
together instantly. Our knowledge of music theory, our technical skills, our
phrasing and improvisational skills, our ear training, all need to become
integrated together seamlessly and automatically. The reason this often does not
happen, and the reason many guitarists give up in frustration, is because these
things can’t come together unless they are practiced together. In short, we need
to become more purposeful about how and what we practice.

Guitarists love to jam!

Most guitarists I know love to jam. There is nothing quite like letting your hair
down (so to speak) and just allowing your fingers and mind to wander wherever
inspiration leads. In general this is a great thing to do and is a lot of fun. The
danger, however is that there is a chance we can fall into a playing rut because
we have a tendency to jam on autopilot. This can lead to boredom for both you
and the listener because we often wind up repeating a lot of the same licks and
patterns unless we are consciously aware of what we are doing. So to help
alleviate this potential roadblock to progress I want to talk about something I
call Jamming With A Purpose.

The idea is that we are going to set up a jam session, just like you normally
would, but instead of just “winging it” we are going to focus on certain aspects of
our playing that we want to develop and practice applying those purposefully.
Here are just a few reasons why jamming with a purpose will benefit you:

 Your practicing becomes more efficient. Instead of working on technique, theory, phrasing, and
ear training separately in 2 hours time you can work on them together in 30 minutes time.

 Your practicing becomes more effective. By practicing different areas in combination you are
preparing yourself to play music in the real world. All great solos are a combination of things—
technique, theory knowledge, phrasing skills, etc. Playing great solos requires that you are able to
pull all these skills together at the same time.

 Your practicing becomes more enjoyable. Sometimes practicing feels like a chore. As guitarists
all the exercises and metronome ticks can get a bit monotonous after awhile. Practicing several
areas together in a real musical situation is simply a lot of fun!

I use this concept of jamming with a purpose very often and it has paid great
dividends in my own playing. If you combine this type of focused practicing with a
bit of the unstructured “winging it” approach you’ll get the best of both worlds.

Setting up your practice session

We’ll need to get a few things organized before we can start the practice session.
Here’s a list of the things you will need to make this work:

1. A high quality backing-track to solo over, preferably with drums, bass and
rhythm guitar. Choose a style that you like so that you are inspired to play.

2. You’ll need to be able to identify the key(s) center of the track as well as the
appropriate scale(s) that can be used to solo over this track.

3. Choose a few areas of your playing that you’d like to focus on developing as
a lead
guitarist. For example, you might want to focus on certain techniques like sweep
picking or legato playing. Or you may choose to work on your string-bending,
vibrato and blues based phrasing ideas.
Here is a very simple example of how this works. Let’s assume we have chosen
a backing track in the key of D natural minor. I chose D minor because it is of
course the saddest of all keys J (Please refer to the movie Spinal Tap if you don’t
know what I’m talking about)!

Actually, I chose D minor because although it is a common key for rock guitarists,
it is much less familiar than the typical E minor and A minor keys. That is one of
the things we will work on here—improving familiarity with D minor.

Jam Session 1

For this jam session I have chosen these things to work on:

1. Applying all 5 patterns of the D minor blues scale.

2. Working on improving my ability to express myself with string bending and
vibrato.
3. Phrasing using diatonic 7th arpeggios.
4. Working on learning a key that isn’t as familiar.

That’s it! Just put on the backing track and begin playing with these areas as
your focus.
(Click here to get your free D minor backing track as well as tablature
examples) You will want to weave in and out of these things as you play. For
example, you might start out slow and focus on getting some nice sustaining
bends going. Then play some easy phrases from the blues scale ending them
with a nice wide vibrato. Then move things up a notch and work on some of the
7th arpeggios in the key of D minor, trying to create some nice melodic ideas in
the process. Then begin combining all areas together.

Your backing track should be fairly long. You can even loop it so it plays over
and over. This will give you room to stretch out and experiment. I guarantee you
will come up with some of your own great soloing ideas while doing this! I usually
work on this for 30 minutes or so, but even 15 minutes a day will do wonders for
your soloing and overall musicianship. Why? Because now you are applying
things you know to real music. This isn’t just a monotonous exercise this is self-
expression baby!
Jam Session 2

Let me give you one more example. For simplicity sake let’s keep our D minor
backing track. But this time we’ll work on three different areas.

1. Applying all 7 three note per string patterns.

2. Phrasing using the legato technique.
3. Soloing using adjacent string pairs.

Follow the same procedure as before focusing on each area separately and then
combining them. Aim for musicality, self-expression and try and keep your mind
focused so you don’t fall into the mindless “noodling” trap. Save that for another
time. We are here to make progress!

I realize that, although this concept is simple, this can be a bit confusing if this is
new to you. So I’ve created a special free E-book for you with audio
demonstrations of these jam sessions, plus tablature of the examples and a killer
D minor backing track. In addition I’ve included detailed explanations of the entire
process. To get your free E-book now click HERE.

Hopefully you’ve been inspired to take this concept of jamming with a

purpose and utilize it with your own goals in mind. Determine what areas you
want to work on. Find your own backing tracks in the styles you like. Personalize
it and make it your own!