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A common problem faced by many aspiring guitar heroes is that despite their arsenal of technical skills they just can’t seem to come up with a cool sounding killer guitar solo. Below I have laid out some tips & techniques for creating some memorable melodies.

Melody Tips

• Keep in rhythm of main melody

• Change the rhythm of the notes. A common cause of lead playing boredom is doing everything with the same rhythm. Singers don’t sing like that!

• You should use some repetition
• A simple melody repeated on and off within your solo will make it a memorable one
• Repeat notes or groups of notes
• Play the same riff in two or three different octaves

• Runs and ideas
• A “RUN” is a part of a guitar scale played in an upward or downward direction

• An “IDEA” is 2-3 notes that repeat and add tension to your guitar soloing

• Target tones - These are natural target points in the particular key you are playing in. Eg 1st, 3rd, 5th but aim especially for the 9th, 11th, 13th

• Copy the singer’s main vocal riff from the verse or chorus
• Embellish your own melody with double stops
• Or play half of those notes, filling in the remaining notes with either SILENCE or sustained notes

• Let a note ring out, play a couple slow notes, then a couple fast ones

• Start with a big fat string bend

• Steal a riff from a famous guitarist. But not the exact riff in the same scale in the same key! Adapt it to the new key or scale you’re working with. Remember though, stealing from one person is plagiarism, stealing from lots of people is research!

• Learn a major scale across the entire neck
• But don’t play the scale back & forth like an exercise

• You don’t have to show every trick in EVERY MEASURE. Too much is not often a good thing. Besides you’ll lengthen your creative career by keeping some tricks up your sleeve for future songs.

Guitar Solo Tools

• Hammer-ons
• Hammer your finger on the guitar string firmly
• Hammer your finger close to the fret
• Let the first note ring slightly before hammering
• Really think of a hammer hitting a nail

• Pull-offs
• Let the fingertip grab the guitar string slightly as it pulls off
• The finger should pull up and over the adjacent string
• If you are doing a pull-off from a fretted note to another fretted note, put both fingers on their frets and then pull-off

• Double stops (two notes strummed or played at the same time)

• String bends / Vibrato

• Slides
• Begin each slide from the 1st fret
• Quickly slide your finger up to the fret # specified
• Be sure to keep the pressure on the guitar string as you slide
• The whole left hand should move when you slide the finger
• Let the note that you slide to ring for 1 to 2 seconds
• Some of these slides are 2 frets long, others are just 1 fret

Armed with these new tips & techniques you should now be able to create some better guitar solos that might just lead you to fame and fortune. Happy jamming!

Click here to listen to a showcase of my recordings.

Amateur songwriters tend to look at the entire business of songwriting as a single-dimensional activity. It’s as if they say, “I want to be able to write commercially successful songs that I can sell to professional singers,” as if it’s all just one big process. The songwriting business is actually a multidimensional world, involving two major areas: creating and marketing. The marketing end of the business will not happen unless you have created a good song. Creating a good song is where the process comes to a grinding halt for most people.

SO WHAT’S THE SECRET?: It often surprises people when they discover how incredibly simple most of the biggest songs of the past fifty years are. If you think that songs are complicated art forms, you are about to discover one of the most important principles of songwriting, and why many writers’ songs might not be working yet. It’s a principle that applies to so much in our life – not just music: KEEP IT SIMPLE. The biggest and best hits in the songwriting business are songs with simple melodies using a simple form, songs that are easy for people to remember. Most songs in the popular music realm use no more than five chords, often fewer. And their melodies usually encompass only seven or eight notes, if that!

IN NEED OF INSPIRATION? If you aren’t listening to music on a daily basis, then start! Trying to write songs without listening to the pros’ songs is like trying to draw a picture of something you’ve never seen. If you’re really serious about songwriting – start listening now! Listen all the time, and not just to one style of music. Let yourself become influenced by different styles – pop, rock, jazz, country, blues, or classical. Open your mind – let it grow! By listening to many genres, not just one, you will be subtly developing your own personal writing style in a way that will differentiate you from all others. Using the shuffle function on your iPod is a great way to ensure you hear the full range of your music library. I know of people who deliberately try to limit how much music they listen to, because they don’t want to be unduly influenced by another songwriter. Big mistake! Have you ever had that nagging fear that everything you write is something that sounds familiar? And you wonder if you are simply plagiarizing music already written by someone else? The good news is that you probably aren’t. But that fear is more common in songwriters who limit their listening experience to only one or two favourite performers. If you are a pop songwriter, listen to classical music. Listen to blues, or country, or bluegrass. Even if you don’t like a particular style of music, keep in mind that there are great songs in every genre. Great songs are great because they work, and we need to learn why they work. The more you listen, the more material you’ll have at your disposal. And your musical brain will begin fusing ideas together in a way it hasn’t really done before. The world’s best songwriters are able to speak intelligently about many different styles and writers from many genres.

DON’T FIXATE ON “TALENT”. Fixate on writing good songs. If you get into a system of writing good music, talent becomes a side issue. Not that it’s not important… it’s just not worth worrying about. Think of it this way… who’s the more “talented” artist, Monet or Rembrandt? Who knows? And frankly, who cares?!

Click here to listen to a showcase of my recordings.

The classic album byThe Mr Bad Guys Krew

Click here to listen to all the tracks

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