If you're a guitar player who is over 50 that has never tried guitar soloing, then there are difficulties to be prepared for that can affect anyone of an older age that will often hold you back. For an older adult, trying new things can often be a challenge, and this includes learning to play a solo. There are even some guitar players who feel like they are getting worse when they get to be over 50 years old... 




In this video, I’m going to show guitar players (no matter what your age), how to start playing solos using a simple 3-step process that can be integrated into your playing every day for as little as 3 minutes to achieve great results!

WATCH THE VIDEO:




PLAYING SOLOS - FOR OLDER ADULTS:
A lot of guitar players get into learning the guitar as older adults. And, once some of the basic chords are developed, almost every student of this instrument will get the urge to try and play solos.

One of the big problems with soloing is knowing “where and how” to start into soloing without getting bogged down learning a lot of the larger, more complex scale patterns.

An easier way to learn to play a solo is through using the two most basic movements that make up scale and key creation on the neck.

And then, you can combine that with two of the “most common” soloing root notes used by guitar players. And, finally, we take all that information and use it with a firmly established backing track harmony (that focuses on using both the major and the minor tonality).




3 MINUTES A DAY:
With just those ideas (listed above) you can have a powerful approach to be able to learn how to play solos. And, you can apply this approach in as little as 3 min. a day to start seeing results.


STEP 1). NECK PATTERNS
Here’s our first guitar neck pattern for Major Tonality soloing. It’s a 6th string pattern for the “A” Major scale based upon only a few simple intervals of both 1-note and 2-note movements. Here’s how it sits on the neck… 


Major Scale - Simple Soloing Pattern:
Low Register (6th string)




Major Scale - Simple Soloing Pattern:
Mid Register (4th string)




Next, let’s take a look at a pattern for the minor tonality. For this pattern, our root note will be centered upon another of the most popular notes that are used to play solos very early on for guitarists, and the root I’m referring to is an, “E.”

Here’s our first pattern off of the 5th guitar string’s 7th fret…


Minor Scale - Simple Soloing Pattern:
Mid-Register (5th string)



Minor Scale - Simple Soloing Pattern:
Mid-Register (5th string) 



STEP 2). BACKING PROGRESSIONS:

Now that you have some Major and Minor scale patterns for two of our most popular guitar root notes, and these really are ones that guitarists will tend to learn about very early on in their playing, (the root notes of “A” and “E”), what we’re going to do next is discuss how to create a couple of simple backing progressions.

Our first will be in the key of “A Major” and the other will be in the key of “E Minor.” So, let’s learn these progressions right now… Let start with the sound of Major. 

I have a very easy to perform backing riff that you can learn (and then record) for performing solos using the patterns off of the root note of “A” based off of the open 5th string. Here’s how it works


Progression One: Key of "A" Major




Next, I have another idea for you to try, this one is built off of the sound of “Minor” and it provides a backing track to cover the color of, “E Minor.”


 Progression Two: Key of "E" Minor







I wanted to take a moment to let you know, that if you have an interest in expanding this knowledge to using all of the musical keys, then I’d like to make you a great offer.

With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from either my Tee-Spring, or my Zazzle store, I’ll send you a free copy of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.

One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).

Another one is my “Barre Chord” handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.

Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.

Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.



CONCLUSION:
Now that you have a couple of different Major and Minor scales for the most popular root notes of “A” and “E,” …Plus, you’ve got a pair of jam track progressions that can provide you with a solid back drop of sound for getting started with soloing, the fun of doing this can now begin!

Grab your guitar and start working out simple soloing ideas and if you do this for as little as 3 min. a day, you’ll start noticing that you’ll get better and better as the days go on.

All you need to do is some scale pattern preparation, then fire up your jam tracks, and start with some really simple lead ideas.

Just follow a simple winding course of notes, and as time goes on, your wandering note practice will start to get more and more polished-up until you have a number of more solid lead guitar ideas for playing over both the Major and Minor tonality.