Rhythmic Soloing

A question many people have asked me is: “If you’re playing rythym guitar, how do you throw in melodic elements without loosing timing or making it feel clunky?” If you’re strumming some chords and then go into some soloing or single note playing, the feeling is often like going from 1st to 5th gear in one go. It’s difficult to make it smooth, and keep it all in time. The answer is to incorporate some notes into the strum pattern to create rhythmic strumming. That way it’s much easier to keep the momentum going and therefore avoiding the ‘gear change’! I have found this to be great when playing through a song you want to have a ‘solo verse’ when you don’t have a second guitarist.

The idea is to use only the notes on the two highest strings, and only the notes which fit into the key of the chords you’re playing near to where your strumming; that way the strum flows into the notes fluidly.

The Four Note Magic Rythym Solo

This exercise is going to be in the key of C Major. The solo notes used in this will be the 3rd and 5th fret on the first string (notes G and A) and the 3rd and 5th on the second string (notes D and E). The solo notes will be played over a loop of 2 bars of chord C, to 2 bars of chord Am. Each bar lasts four beats. The strum pattern is based on an alternating bass line, like guitarist’s use in country music:

e|—–0—–0—–0—–0—–0—–0—–0—–0–|
B|—–1—–1—–1—–1—–1—–1—–1—–1–|
G|—–0—–0—–0—–0—–2—–2—–2—–2–|
D|—–2–2——–2–2——–2–2–2—–2–2–2–|
A|–3———–3———–0———–0———–|
E|————————————————–|

Try that loop first and get it so that you can smoothly change from one chord pattern to the next. Next we are going to replace the second and third bars with ‘mini solo’s’ made up from the notes I mentioned before:

e|—–0—–0——–3–0—–0—–0–5–3——–|
B|—–1—–1–3–5———–1—–1——–5—–|
G|—–0—–0—————–2—–2———–3–|
D|—–2–2——————–2–2–2————–|
A|–3———————–0———————–|
E|————————————————–|

Each of those chord strums are down strums, so on the last beat of the first and third bars you are in a nice place to move straight into the solo bar. Your pick is pretty much above the strings you need to use. That way you get that fluidity. The big mistake people make is they fly away from the chord playing, way up the neck into a solo section.

The same four solo notes work for any progression in C, yet the magic is that they also fit right into any progression in G as well. If you play the same notes again over the key of A or E, the effect is bluesy. So all you have to remember is those four notes and you can work around with four keys, which is handy if you’re not ready (or don’t want to) learn lots of scales. Remember that you can create a lot a melodies from just four notes, especially if you include slides, hammer ons and pull offs. The best idea is to experiment with it (once you can play the exercise!). Here’s a list of chords to play with in each key, to add just those four solo notes.

In the keys of A and E, the I , IV and V chord work best. The other chords can be harder to work in the solo notes. In the keys of C and G all the chords work great over the solo notes.