Unit 17: Soloing

It's time to learn about improvisation and playing a guitar solo. The song we'll use to do this is the popular jam tune "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young. If you really want to hear some amazing playing on this song, check out the G3 video with Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. They play this song together at the end of their live DVD. It's incredible.

So here's the chord progression: Em (4 beats),D,C (2 beats each)

As you can tell, it's a relative minor switch again. This tune would be a I, V, IV, in G if instead of Em, Mr. Young opted for the relative major (G). He did have a plan though. The lyrics to each verse describe a rather dark portrait of life in the streets while the Em,D,C chord progression is used.

For the chorus however, he DOES use the G major chord and all of it's brightness to highlight his lyric of hope "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World". All four beats each: (G,D,C, then single notes: C,B,E). Like this:


The transition to get back to the verse is an A chord.

Now that we know the tune, it's time to solo on it. We'll start with the blues scale. The blues scale is made up of the following scale degrees: Root, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7 .

Since the song is in Em, we'll learn the blues scale in Em. Start on the 12th fret of the E string:

-----------------------------------------------------12--15--(Root, b3)
---------------------------------------------12--15----------(5,b7)
--------------------------------12--14--15-------------------(b3,4,b5)
------------------------12-14--------------------------------(b7,Root)
-----------12--13--14----------------------------------------(4,b5,5)
--12--15----------------------------------------------------- (Root, b3)

Learn this scale both ascending and descending, and try it in different keys to get comfortable with it.

To begin improvising, you need to experiment. Yes. Experiment with the way different notes out of this scale sound over the chord progression. You can play along with the Neil Young recording and noodle around to get an idea of the sounds in this scale, or you can record yourself
playing the chord progression a few times, then play it pack and jam along with your own recording. There's a lot of great open source audio recording programs out there for free. Try Audacity.

Now, once you have recorded the chord progression, go through each note of the blues scale one at a time once through the progression. Be rhythmicaly creative. You'll find that some notes sound stable, and other sound unstable. This tension and release is what music is all about. You want your solo to move from places of tension to places of rest. Before you can do that, you need to know how each notes sounds against each chord, so start experimenting.

Once you have gone through the whole scale, start experimenting with notes in pairs. Use the high E string 12th fret and 15th fret to make it through the progression. Like this:

With those same two notes, you can create a lot of color by bending. Let's bend to the G on the 15th fret. Hold down the 14th fret with your third finger. Hit the note and bend it up (towards the ceiling) until the pitch matches the fretted note on the 15th fret. You won't have to bend far as you are only going a half step. It will sound like this:

You can apply this technique to any note. Here's the same concept on the B string:

The main rule in bending is, you must have a target note in mind to bend to. Don't just bend any old note for the sake of bending. Have fun with this assignment!

For you assessment you will need to play all the parts of "Rockin in the Free World", The blues scale in E, and be brave enough to attempt a solo in class.

Have fun with this assignment!