How To Play Emotional & Creative Guitar Solos By Using The Phrasing Of Your Favorite Singers

How To Play Emotional & Creative Guitar Solos By Using The Phrasing Of Your Favorite Singers

By Tom Hess

What is the easiest way to make your solos very emotional? Answer: imitate the phrasing of your favorite singers.

Here is how:

1. Transcribe Vocal Lines Of Your Favorite Songs

Think of 5 great vocal melodies you like and transcribe them note for note using your guitar. As you do this, observe how each melody contains notes that are sustained longer. These notes give the overall melody a sense of structure and make it more memorable.

Integrate this into your guitar soloing by playing the vocal lines you transcribed while filling-in the space between the longer notes with fast guitar runs. Practice creating many variations of each vocal line in this manner. The better you get at this, the more melodic your guitar solos become.

2. Make Your Vibrato Very Wide And Fast

Using wide and fast vibrato imitates a singer’s voice to add TONS of intensity into your guitar playing. Practice using vibrato that is one whole step wide. This gives you the ability to inject intense emotion into any note of a guitar solo.

3. Exaggerate The Release Of String Bends

Many guitarists only vary the speed of the ascending bend (bending the string up in pitch) but rarely do anything to vary the release of a bend.

All the drama is in releasing the tension created by the string bend. Improving this aspect of your guitar phrasing makes your solos sound very vocal.

Practice this by doing the following:

1. Choose any two notes on the guitar that are two frets apart (such as fret 5 and fret 7 on the g string).

2. Pre-bend the fret in between both notes up to match the pitch of the second note.

3. Strike the string and gradually release the bend until it is almost entirely released.

4. Quickly play the lowest of the two notes you chose and add heavy vibrato to it.

5. After you’ve mastered this, try using it in a guitar phrase and observe how much more intense your playing becomes.

Want to learn more ways to improve your soloing skills? Read this article about playing creative lead guitar licks to learn a proven method for making your own guitar solos.