Playing the "perfect" note at "just the right time" is one of the most common goals of every guitar player! In this video, I’m going to show you how to train your eyes, ears and hands to play the best notes at just the right time during a solo...






You'll learn simple methods for never playing lousy sounding notes again and you'll give yourself the fixes to play the best notes based upon "Chord Tone Targeting." 

Plus, you'll learn how to avoid the most common mistakes that all guitarists make when they are soloing.

It doesn't matter whether you can play a solo now, or if you struggle to do any soloing whatsoever. Regardless, you’ll find the tips in this lesson incredibly helpful and I guarantee you will be doing better guitar solos by the time the video is over.

WATCH THE VIDEO:




In this lesson we’re talking about playing melody and learning the best notes to hit for when you set out to play lead guitar. 

My goal for you by the time this video is over, is to make sure that you’re not only aware of the two best notes to hit while playing a guitar solo, but that you’re hitting them more often when you do set out to play a solo.

I don’t care if you’re an advanced soloist (and you’re playing a lot of solos right now), or if you’re struggling to even play one decent guitar solo. 

If you adopt this two note targeting idea that I’m about to show you here - I promise that your guitar solos are going to change for the better – starting right away!

Let’s get right into the first idea to start things off – and that is your understanding of backing chords.






BACKING CHORDS:
Backing chords are the chords that are played in behind your guitar solo.

For example, if we were in the key of, “A Minor,” and we had to play a solo over a chord progression that went *from; “Am, to Em, to Dm,” and then to “G Major,” that group of chords would establish our backing track.



Each chord of a backing track relates to the key signature out of where those chords come from, and this is called the keys harmony.

In music, keys establish the chord harmony and everything is based upon the scale tones and the chord types that relate back to the specific steps of the key.





CHORD TONE TARGETING - SINGLE CHORD:
When you’re just getting started with playing guitar solos, and you want to hit all the best tones - then the fastest route to achieving that, is to focus on just one chord at a time using a concept called “chord tone targeting.”

Since you’re new to all this, that chord progression that I initially mentioned, (with those four different chords - one in each measure), would be far too challenging!

So instead, let’s focus only on the first chord of, “A Minor.”




The “A Minor’ chord has three notes that are based off of the; *Root, then the note 3-tones away from the root, and then finally the note that is 5-tones away.


"A Minor" Chord Degrees:

The specific notes that make up the “A Minor” chord *are the, “A, the C, and the E tones.”

 "A Minor" Chord Tones:

Practice Routine:
The practice routine that I’m going to suggest will focus on recording a static chord vamp of “A Minor,” and then over that chord your goal will be to play a small scale shape to keep everything more manageable.

However, when the phrases you perform wrap-up, I’m going to ask that you end your ideas upon the chords 3rd or the chord’s 5th.

With the 5th chord tone being the most favored.

Of course, the root note will also be fine, but since it’s the root, it’s very generic sounding and you’ll definitely notice that! – Especially after you practice targeting that 5th chord tone!

So, let’s get things started with this practice approach (by learning to target the chord tones of an, “A Minor” chord).


Static Chord Vamp: "A Minor Chord"



“A Minor” Practice Pattern – Small Scale Shape on the Neck



                         ____________________________________________________

I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.

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.

As a BONUS, (from my "Over 40 and Still Can't Play a Scale" video), I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.

As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.

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.    
                       ____________________________________________________



CHORD TONE TARGETING - TWO CHORDS:
The next thing to do is to expand out to another chord for this exercise routine so that you can become competent at doing this chord tone targeting practice over more than one chord.

The next chord that we’re going to use will be the “Em.” You can select any chord you’d like, but for our exercise I’m going to just randomly select the “E Minor” chord.

Because understanding harmony is really important, you’ll want to know where this chord exists within the key of “A Minor” (and it exists upon the 5th degree of the key).




Prior to jamming out phrases around this chord we are also going to need to know the specific chord tones that are found within our chosen chord of, “E Minor.”

The structure is still the same as to what we had done from defining the “A Minor” chord. The notes are all based upon that Root, 3rd and 5th concept.


 "E Minor" Chord Degrees:

From the root of “E” we add upon it a “G note” and on top of that we also add the note of “B.” And, now we have our second chord and we’ve established it’s notes.


 "E Minor" Chord Tones: 


Now, it’s time to start practicing the targeting of chord tones for both “A Minor” and “E Minor” chords…



“A Minor to E Minor” Practice Pattern – Small Scale Shape on the Neck.


The key of “A Minor” chord progression that I am going to introduce next covers an “A Minor chord to a D Minor chord.”

In order to play the chord tone targeting approach that I’m suggesting we’re going to need to focus on playing phrases that specifically target the chord’s third of “G” as well as, the chords 5th of “B.”

Two-Chord Vamp: "A Minor to D Minor Chord"






CONCLUSION:
Now that you’ve become familiar with simple scale layout patterns that can get you started for both a single chord and for two-chords, play over the chord progression of “A Minor” to the chord “D Minor” so that you can get a taste for how straight forward this practice method is to do on guitar. 

One of the most important things to understand is that after practicing this for awhile - the ability to target chord tones, becomes more or less automatic for your; Eyes, Ears and for your hands.

After a period of time spent studying all this, what happens is that as the chords go by in a chord progression you’re gonna start to feel more confident about how you play phrases.

With continued guitar playing and more practice, confidence will become even better from the development of a natural set of skills we call musical intuition (which basically evolves out of hearing, seeing and feeling where your hands want to instinctively travel to next on the instrument).

It takes time and patience to get good at this, but with doing the work you’ll start to see results rather quickly, so you’ll definitely feel motivated to keep going with your studies!