Three Ingredient of Guitar Soloing

When it comes to written or spoken structure the initial part should gain attention, the second part should intrigue or build anticipation so that the third part becomes the punch line or resolution. This is a powerful communication skill that politicians and advertisers have utilized for ages. Accordingly, it makes sense that music, being a language of sorts, may benefit from careful structuring. Call it building tension and release or focusing the listener's attention according to your will, but do not underestimate the power of this knowledge and its methodology. Remember that you must 'sell' yourself and your performance. Harnessing the power of three will heighten audience appreciation and increase your personal playing satisfaction.

We just considered structuring in the serial or sequential sense but let's take a different view - the simple concept of having three ingredients. Incidentally, it should be clear that it's soloing and the concept of 'the solo' that we're discussing here. Study then memorize the following recommended game plan:

• Articulation - H, PO, S, CO, BU, LD, etc.
• Skeleton node choice - major pentatonic, natural minor, dorian - double stops or single notes.
• Play the melody -!!!
• Dynamics - soft to loud and vice versa.
• Range - i.e. low to high pitch.
• Texture and timbre - clean tone, crunch, overdrive, sweet, gnarly, etc.
• Contour - linear, zigzag, stepwise, subjectively involving scales, arpeggios and chromaticism.

Playing attack is bound to more than one of the above, so legato or staccato is rather more of a stylistic matter than an ingredient in itself.

See that the above headings are not the three possible elements in themselves; they are merely the 'bags' to choose from. To clarify, here are a few examples of a trio of things that could help form an interesting solo:

• Bending, sliding, highlighting with occasional vibrato
• Using arpeggios to create a zigzag line, restrained use of triplet phrases, increasing playing volume towards the end of the bar.
• Mostly high nodes, exclusive use of mixolydian mode, plenty of pull-offs (range, scale, articulation).

I could go on almost endlessly but I'm sure that by now you've got the picture.

Of course, you're not obliged to consider only three items, it's just that seven or eight kinds of information are really too much for most people. Orchestration and arrangement can be deep and complex (or in simple strands if you prefer) but it's the amount of types of things going on at once that we should learn to temper and gain control over.