How to Slow Down a Guitar Solo

The FASTEST way, hands down, to become a better guitar soloist is to study and learn the guitar solos of your favorites guitarists.By doing so you

• Learn new guitar phrases, licks and patterns
• You automatically become more technically proficient on the fretboard
• You adopt that guitarists style of playing and will start to sound a little more like him with all your guitar solos in the future.

Problem….

How the heck do you learn a blazing fast guitar solo when it is so fast it is almost a blurr?

Slow Down The Guitar Solo, Slow Down the Music!

There are a couple of software programs you can do this with. I USE to use Blaze Media Pro. It is not designed for this purpose but it works. The main problem with it is that when you slow down the guitar solo with it you also reduce the pitch which sends the music out of tune with your guitar which is a real nightmare if you have locking tremlo system on your guitar.

Then I discovered RiffMaster. RiffMaster Slows down the music but that is just the start of what RiffMaster can do. With RiffMaster you can:

• Slow down the guitar solo to really any speed you want. You can slow down the music just a tiny bit or as much as 1/5 of its original speed. You precisely control how much you slow down the musc with a slider bar.
• You CAN slow down the musicpitch with a seperate sider bar. This is useful if you load a song into RiffMaster and it is out of tune with your guitar. Don’t retune your guitar. Re tune the song! Much simpler and quicker
• Use the built in 8 band equilizer to drown out or muffle background music and make the lead guitar sound louder, crisper, and clearer. This is usually done by moving the low bass and high treble sliders down and moving the midrange up. When you find the EQ setting that works most of the time for most guitar solos you can save this setting as a preset for future music you load into RiffMaster.
• Save all or part of the music as a .wav or .mp3 file. This way when you load in a song you want to slow down, slow the music down to the speed you want, adjust the EQ so the lead guitar stands out, you can now save it with your settings intact so when you want to listen later you just double click on the mp3 and your guitar solo is there for you to learn from
• Set a music loop start and end point. (the lead guitar solo you want to slow down the music for) and loop the music at this point. Benefit: say there is a tiny portion of the lead you want to study like say a 2 second part of the lead guitar solo. You loop that portion over and over while you figure it out and play it on your guitar. Once you have figured out the part delete the start and end loop points.

One feature of RiffMaster for slowing down musc that is nice is that RiffMaster is not a memory hog. While running my task manager showed it was using a whopping 30 MB of ram.

Now do not get me wrong. For slowing down music to learn a guitar solo there are a couple of options out there software wise but I personally have now found a program for slowing down music that has all the features and tools that RiffMaster has.

Another options to consider for learning guitar solos is guitar tabs. Guitar tabs are pretty accurate. But I personally find guitar tabs as being extremely tedious and way too left brained for learning guitar solos. It is sort of how Waldo learns a lead guitar solo. You can also listen to another guys interpretation on youtube but I never really felt comfortable with that. It is sort of like getting a story from a friend who told a friend who told a friend sort of thing. I want to get it straight from the guitarist.

Until you decide to download Riffmaster software for slowing down music for yourself you can also visit a pretty cool website for slowing down guitar solos so you can learn them at http://www.slowdownthatleadguitarsolo.com A really long web address but the name says it all. They have several dozen guitar solos slowed down from great guitarists. They have ozzy osbourne (Randy Rhoads), Van Halen, Scorpions, Jimi Hendrix and a bunch of lead guitarsolos from bands.

So you may have started playing guitar, learning the necessary skills to get yourself going, and now you’re on the hunt for easy metal songs to play on guitar. Well, I salute you for indulging in metal guitar since attempting this genre on guitar will really test your tempo, speed, technical detail, and patience.

Here is a compilation of easy metal songs to play on guitar that are practical goals for beginning guitarists. There’s always going to be a debate on what “metal” truly means as a genre, but this list is really all about sculpting your skills for the heavier and more aggressive side of playing guitar.

* “Confined” by As I Lay Dying

This metal song on guitar is definitely a test of your double-picking abilities. The tempo for this song may appear daunting, but your main focus should be on precision and rhythm since picking is emphasized in somewhat simple patterns.

* “Faint” by Linkin Park

Although this is considered “nu-metal” it still falls into the genre of metal. This song can give you more of a lesson in consistency and chord structure as you move smoothly in and out of the verses and choruses.

* Most of “End of Heartache” by Killswitch Engage is fairly easy.

When you take a stab at an easy metal song on guitar, you need a taste of a break-down riff and “End of Heartache” contains just that. To be honest, most of this song is a break-down riff. You’ll also find a nice mix of fair lead licks to practice on as well.

* The lead riff of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica isn’t too bad.

This riff is considered a classic and anybody who’s anybody as a guitarist usually knows this one. It’s at a medium tempo and isn’t too difficult for a beginner.

* “All That’s Left” by Thrice

This easy metal song on guitar starts with a sweet riff that gets fists pumping immediately. As the song continues, you’ll find a nice mix of power chords and strong palm-muted rhythms to practice.

* “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door” by Underoath

Again, this can be considered a different kind of metal, but Underoath usually doesn’t disappoint. “Dangerous Business” gives you some experience with power chords along with some more diverse chord formations right from the beginning of the tune.

* “Change” by The Deftones

Another “nu-metal” tune that’s easy on guitar for metal players, “Change”, should introduce style into your playing. Although this tune appears to be side-splittingly simple, the subtleties of the song lie in your ability to emulate the band’s style.

In your guitar travels I’m sure that you’ll start your own personal list of metal guitar songs that are easy for you to play, but these can get your foot in the door if you’re not sure where to go yet. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find a new favorite band out of this list.

Learning blues guitar takes good instruction and practice, but not just any practice. Since playing the blues is as much about feel as it is about skill you need to put yourself in a performance scenario every chance you get.

Since most of us don’t have a full band to jam with a couple of times a week you can substitute with some good blues backing tracks.

What are Backing Tracks

Backing tracks, sometimes called jam tracks, are professionally recorded arrangements of a 12 bar blues pattern in a particular key. Often these tracks include bass, drums, guitar and maybe even piano. The tracks will often last much longer then a regular song to provide you with lots of time to jam along with.

The Secret of Great Players

Blues backing tracks have been the secret of many great blues guitarists over the past few years. They offer you a full band track to practice along to, create you own riffs and really begin to feel the music. With consistent practice using jam tracks you’ll find that when you do jam with other musicians it will be second nature.

Where to Find Backing Tracks

Thanks to the web there are tons of great free and paid blues backing tracks. There are packages of tracks available for purchase from $20-$50. These paid tracks are generally going to be of higher quality then free, but they won’t necessarily improve you’re playing any more.

The key is to practice and do it often. Also practice in a variety of keys, not just the same key over and over. With consistent use of blues jam tracks in your practice routine you’ll become a much better lead blues guitar player then if you spent hours and hours memorizing scales and techniques on your own without the use of other instruments.

Have you ever wanted to pickup the guitar and start playing your best-loved tracks but procrastinated? What about admiring music artists who are performing on stage?

Its possible you could have quizzed yourself: Precisely how can I be just like these folks? Well, the primary thing that you got to carry out is to take action and read and learn about the classical guitar.

Before you dive immediately inside the world of guitar playing, this is definitely one critical piece of advice that beginning guitarists would need to remember. You would be wise to get started in being taught the fundamentals of playing the guitar. I have observed many guitarists get increasingly exasperated quickly playing the guitar for a short time. Every time the root cause of the concern was tracked, it is discovered that nearly all had missed or disregarded the fundamentals of guitar playing.

Lots of beginner guitarists fall into the trap of lunging straight into learning demanding tunes because of the fact they were inspired by the belief to play their very own favourites songs. Some of these guitarists generally by pass learning the essentials of playing the guitar and as time pass, they go through burnout as they discover it is extremely hard to generate the ultimate results they want to have.

Most notably, it is of greatest importance that the guitar is tuned correctly. An out of tuned guitar merely sounds unpleasant. Hence, it is a good habit to devote some time to tune your guitar before playing it. By practicing this motion every single time you grab the electric guitar, you would certainly also be subtly be teaching your ears.

We’ll perform a poll, how many guitarists out there can name each various component on the guitar and point out their purposes? By just comprehending the various guitar parts, it wouldn’t only assist in learning the guitar but also buildup your experience to come up with creative sounds. Pertaining to instance, do you know that you will find various unique points on the guitar strings which will produce harmonics when played?

One of the most pivotal information which guitar enthusiasts frequently fall short to complete just before training are usually warm-ups. Practicing the guitar is undoubtedly relatively similar to participating in sports activities. Just before focus on practicing, it actually is far better to warm-up your fingers along with mindset towards learning the guitar. Normally, a very simple warm up workout routine with the fingers would take about 5 minutes and boost up the fingers to much better performance.

In addition to these major guidelines for beginning guitarists, there are a considerable number of several other important stuff of which the beginner guitar players really need with regard to rock solid framework in music. Eventually, putting in time and effort to learn the guitar can easily reap massive incentives for your own enjoyment of music. Always keep those fingers moving and don’t quit.

Have you ever wondered if there’s some ‘secret underground trick’ to learning how to play guitar? Well, there IS a secret — but it’s one that ‘hides in plain sight.’

If you want to move beyond the basics and truly master your guitar, there are two things you absolutely must do:

1. Memorize the fretboard.

2. Develop a solid understanding of the relationship between scales, modes and chords.

The reason for memorizing the fretboard should be obvious. Knowing where all the notes are will make you a faster, more intuitive player. The reasons (there are many) behind learning the relationship between scales, modes and chords require a little more explanation.

The first thing to understand is that chords are constructed from scales.

Let’s say you want to know which notes make up the G-major chord You’d first need to know is that Major chords are built from the root, third and fifth tones of their corresponding Major scale. Then, you’d need to know the G Major scale, which is: G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G.

If you count up from G to the 3rd note you arrive at B. If you count up from G to the 5th note you have D. Play these notes together as G B D, and you have a G Major chord!
The second to understand is that scales (and,therefore, chords) can begin on any note within the key

Here’s where modes and chord inversions (‘voicings’) come in. Let’s say that you decide to play that G Major chord at the 7th fret on the first three strings of the guitar. If you strum the chord from the inside out, you will play DGB. In other words, your ‘root’ is no longer the bottom/first note of the chord. This is what’s known as an inversion.

Now, let’s say you are playing a song in G Major, and you decide to play the scale starting from a root other than G. For instance, you might begin playing the scale at D. Is this a ‘new’ scale or just the same scale from a different position? It’s actually both!

A G Major scale played from any point while in the key of G is considered “Ionian Mode”. It will always sound ‘Major’.

However, if you play the G Major scale pattern from D while you’re in a different key, you’ll be in one of the following, alternative modes: Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, or Locrian.

These modes will sound something other than ‘Major’. The Aeolian mode, for example, is actually considered the Minor scale (Ionian = Major scale for all keys, and Aeolian = Minor scale for all keys).

The other modes fall in between, creating interesting harmonizations and are often used in Jazz music for soloing over the more complex, dissonant-feeling chords such as the Major and Minor 7ths and 9ths.

When you learn these relationships, you’ll start to notice something akin to an ‘interlocking’ pattern on your fretboard. For example, when you know all of the inversions for a given chord, then you’ll also know that beginning a scale on the root of that inversion can lead you into whichever modal scale you want to play over the current key.

The more relationships you see and understand, the more your fretboard reveals it’s self to you for creative soloing and songwriting. The end result is learning and mastering your guitar faster than you ever imagined!

For a lot of guitarists,studying the guitar fretboard might seem like a daunting obstacle. Unlike instruments like the piano, 1 note can usually be played in numerous positions and the difference between natural notes and accidentals is not obviously marked. Even permitting for the fact that the fretboard repeats after the twelfth fret, there are still seventy two note positions to learn on a normal six-string guitar! No wonder, a lot of guitar players quickly give up studying the fretboard out of discouragement, however getting a complete understanding of the fretboard can vastly increase music reading as well as improvisation abilities and therefore it truly is well worth the time invested to know both the notes on the fretboard and the relationships among those notes so that you can easily get around the fretboard instantly and fluently.

So what is the most efficient strategy for you to go about strengthening your fretboard comprehension? I’d recommend splitting it down into sections by studying a subset of the notes on the fretboard, as well as navigational patterns in order to help you to find other notes from the ones you currently know. I’d follow a process along these lines:

1) In case you do not know all of them by now, make sure that you can intuitively identify the notes on the open strings: E, A, D, G, B, E (low to high). Bear in mind that they are duplicated on the twelfth fret.

2) Learn the 5 root shapes. These are the shapes which will allow you to you to find the way from 1 note to different notes with the identical note name. They are based on the positions of roots in the regular open chords C, A, G, E and D. E.g., the roots within the C Major chord are at the 5th string third Fret plus Second string First fret. Hence for the note on the Fifth string, you can identify the equivalent note on the 2nd string simply by going down two frets. Corresponding patterns may be found in the other four chords.
3) Learn how to spell out the natural notes over the fretboard. The natural notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You can locate them by counting up from open strings, or simply by applying the root patterns to navigate from notes that you currently are familiar with. When counting up, you go up two frets in order to move up to the following natural note, with the exception of from B to C and also E to F when you simply go up one fret. Concentrate on mastering the positions of the natural notes along the 5th and 6th strings and applying the root patterns to locate the others. Additionally, try to know the notes on the 7th fret to give you a different baseline for navigating.

4) You find accidental notes by simply going up 1 fret for a sharp or down 1 fret for a flat.

5) In order to properly learn a scale, start out with its formula. The formulation defines the space in between every note on the scale in terms of semitones (1 fret), tones (two-frets), and so on. E.g., the formulation for the major scale is “Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half”. Commence by counting up the scale on a single string.

6) As soon as you can easily play the scale over a single string, you’ll want to be able to play it spanning the fretboard, therefore you need to learn how to make whole step and half step jumps between strings. Ordinarily, to be able to shift up a whole step as you move up a string you step down three frets, then for the half-step you shift down four frets. However, when changing from the 3rd to 2nd string you step down 2 frets for a whole step and three for a half-step. Apply this knowledge using the scale formula so as to locate scale shapes across strings whilst moving your hand as little as you possibly can.

7) Repeat this procedure for other scale formulas. For instance, the Natural Minor scale formula is ” Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole”

Hopefully that this has provided you several tips for the way to go about studying the guitar fretboard.

One useful application that will assist you when mastering the fretboard is the GuitarCourses.ws Fretboard Trainer. This tool provides training in learning fretboard patterns, but even more powerfully includes a practice section which permits you to effortlessly practice the guitar fretboard shapes on a virtual fretboard so you can practice almost any time, even when not having your guitar.

When shopping for electric guitars, you may see that they come in all types of materials and the prices range from very low to outrageously high. You may wonder why this is when they seem to be almost alike in appearance and even sound. There are many things that go into a great guitar, and these are things you may not be able to pick up on until you have been playing for a while. When starting out with this instrument, there is no harm in buying cheap electric guitar, but you should know that after a while you may find that they simply won’t do.

To the novice, the cheap electric guitars may sound just like any of the more expensive ones, but this is never the case. Most people who have been playing for years end up with a certain type that they like, and all has to do with how the instrument sounds. The difference may not be discernible at first, but most musicians develop an ear for these differences very quickly. Different sounds go with different types of music, and some use many different ones for different songs. It can be confusing, and can something you can’t find from cheap electric guitar once you know what you are doing.

There are other things that may mean cheap electric guitars are not going to cut forever. Some have action that is just too high and too hard to use. This refers to how the strings set against the fret board of the guitar. Some are too hard to play and the strings are too far from the fret to play with any ease. That can be a problem for some. However, there are some players who prefer the cheap electric guitars for this very reason. Everyone has a different style and a unique way of learning, and that might mean the inexpensive is the way they want to go.

Even though there are many cheap electric guitars that are no good, there are plenty that are worth their weight in gold. My husband is a guitar player, and one that he loves more than anything cost him a little over a hundred dollars. Compared to some of the other guitars that he has, this was a very good deal. He say is the best sounding and best playing instrument that he has ever owned, and he would never trade for anything else. He has many, but remains his favor. Don’t discount the cheap electric guitars. You may just find one of the many great exceptions out there.

Whether you play acoustic or electric or another kind of guitar, you probably would like to learn how to play lead guitar. It’s fun being the one who gets the main guitar part and the guita r solos. You can usually be more creative with lead guitar than rhythm guitar and it’s more enjoyable in general.

If you’ve seen good guitarists, you probably wonder how they play lead guitar so well. They make it seem so easy. It’s like they’re displaying their emotion through the guitar and they’re just speaking through it.

That is what you should eventually aim toward: unison with the guitar. It needs to be a part of you. You need to feel complete control and completely “at home” with it. This sounds very hard at first, but trust me: it will come with time!

Now for what you came here for… how to play lead guitar. A large part of guitar soloing is using what are called “pentatonic scales.” They are like regular major and minor scales, but they leave out some notes of each scale.
This results in the scale having a very open sound. They sound better even if you’re just playing around with them and not knowing exactly what notes you’re playing. They’re also easier to play since they have fewer notes. (This is maybe why it looks so easy when good guitarists do solos!)

There are three basic kinds of pentatonic scales: the minor pentatonic scale, the major pentatonic scale, and the blues pentatonic scales. You can get a playable pattern for all of these scales and move them up and down the fretboard to play in different keys. You can get these patterns (and tons more!) at http://www.FreeSoloBook.com.

Once you have these pentatonic scale patterns, all you need to know to solo with a song is the key that the song is in. Pentatonic scales are easy to solo in because most notes sound fine no matter where you play them. But don’t take it for granted and just play randomly – study good guitarists’ techniques and try to adapt them into your own style. You can get a really great sound with just these scales.

This will get you started! Remember to have fun with your guitar playing. Don’t be jealous that you’re not as good of a lead guitarist as someone else. Just focus and practice a lot and you will eventually learn how to play lead guitar.

Want free patterns for playing pentatonic scales? Get the 40-page eBook and Amazing Guitar Secrets course now at http://www.FreeSoloBook.com.

Learning to read guitar tab is the fastest method of reading music for the guitar. The greatest thing about it is that you don’t need any musical theory to comprehend how to play guitar tabs since the music is basically an upside down guitar neck.

This article is going to explain how guitar tabs are formed, how you can read individual notes and chords on tab and provide some easy to understand examples. After reading this article you’ll be able to go ahead and start finding tabs of your favourite songs and learning them.

The Concept of Guitar Tablature

If you’ve taken some beginner guitar lessons or watch some videos you know that that 6 strings on the guitar are numbered from the bottom to top 1 to 6. The low E string being the 6th string and the high E string being the 1st string.

When you see a piece of tab what you get is something like this

1st ——–
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th ——–
5th ——–
6th ——–

These would represent the 6 strings of your guitar, but picture it that you’ve laid your guitar down on a table and you’re staring down at it. Remember the 1st string is the bottom string when you’re holding your guitar.
Guitar tabs will have numbers or dots on particular strings telling you which fret to press on and on which string.

EXAMPLE

1st -4——
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th —–6–
5th ——–
6th ——-7

Reading Guitar Tabs

Reading guitar tabs is just a matter of interpreting the numbers, which are the frets you must press down on, and the string numbers, which are the strings you must play.

The above example tab is telling us to first press on the 4th fret of the 1st string and play the note. Next press on the 6th fret of the 4th string and play the note and lastly the 7th fret of the 6th string and play the note. That’s it you’ve just played your very first guitar tab.

Of course this is very simplistic and complete songs are far more advanced but this is the basics of how to play guitar tabs.

Guitar Tabs as Chords

Often there will be a guitar tab that shows a chord you must play. This will look differently then what is above because it’s telling you to play some strings and not others while also pressing down on more then one fret at a time.

An ‘x’ on a string means that you do not hit that string while playing. So for example the below tab is telling you to play a D chord but only hitting the first 3 strings.

1st —2—-
2nd —3—-
3rd —2—-
4th —x—-
5th —x—-
6th —x—-

Note how you form the D chord position on strings 1, 2 and 3 but are instructed only to hit the first 3 strings.

There are more advanced concepts when it comes to how to play guitar tabs, but this is enough to get you started so you can find some of your favourite songs to practice with. The concept of how tabs work is the same for difficult and easy songs the only thing you’ll notice will be some additional symbols that require you to play the note(s) a little differently. This could mean you need to bend or slide to the note or use some other form of technique.

If you play guitar, or are thinking about taking it up you should decide if being able to read guitar music is important to you or not. This have a big impact in how you decide to learn to play the instrument. Why? For a couple of reasons.

1.) Not learning how to read music and relying on Tablature to learn new tunes and just knowing the names of chords is a lot easier then comprehending musical theory and the notes on each string.

2.) If you decide you want to know how to read guitar music then it’s going to take a bit longer to learn the basics. There is more time that must be put in learning additional skills and knowledge needed later on.

What does it take to learn how to read guitar music

The initial part of learning to read music on guitar is learning the musical staff. This consists of the 5 lines and 4 spaces you see on any sheet music. Most guitar lesson home study programs should teach this, be sure to double check that it’s covered before you fork over any money.

The second portion of learning how to read guitar music is understanding the names of each string, and the notes on those strings up to the 5th fret. This corresponds to the notes you’ll be reading from sheet music. This is of course the beginning stages of learning to read music for guitar, and as you learn to read chords it will become more difficult.

The simplest way to Learn to Read Guitar Music

Learning to read sheet music on guitar isn’t impossible on your own, how ever it might take you sometime if you don’t have any previous musical experience. Having a quality guitar lesson book or video on hand will save you time while learning.

The popular learn guitar courses such as Learn and Master Guitar cover learning the notes on each string, how to read music, theory, and scales. These are all intertwined and will take you from just being a strumming guitar player to an intermediate and advanced player.