Tag Archives: melodic soloing tips

Melodic Solo – What You Should Be Practicing!

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We often talk about whether a solo is melodic or not, but what does that mean and how do you practice towards playing more melodic? Most Melodic Solo Guitar Lesson videos talk about which notes to play, but it is actually more important to learn to think on another level and to find ways of connecting the things that you play.

In this guitar lesson, I take a look at some of the things that can make your jazz guitar solos more melodic. Demonstrate what is and isn’t melodic and give you some exercises to work with for adding a story, stronger overall sense of melody.

If you want some more ideas for what to practice and keep in mind when planning your practice schedule then check out this post:

Jazz Practice Routine How To Find The Perfect Balance

Content:

0:00 Intro
0:24 The Level You Need To Take Songs To
0:48 Learning How to play melodies not just notes
1:15 Listen To Yourself – Be Creative
1:46 Example – A Bad Solo
2:08 The Process of Playing a Solo
2:30 A Story in The Solo
2:55 #1 Think in Phrases
3:32 #2 Call-Response
4:01 Example – Solo using Call-Response
4:24 Two Ways of Using Call-Response
4:34 1st –  Two Voices or a Conversation
5:43 Practicing Call-Response
6:34 2nd – More Subtle call-response
6:45 The Wes Montgomery Example
7:55 Practicing The 2nd Call- Response idea
9:14 #3 Motivic Improvisation
9:42 Motives From Darth Vader to Autumn Leaves
10:26 Example – Motivic Solo
10:48 The Three Note Motif from the solo
11:50 Motifs vs Call-Response
12:24 Motif Practice
12:58 How To Practice Motivic Improvisation
13:52 Like The Video? Check out My Patreon Page!

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How to play a Melodic Solo? Thoughts and Exercises

How to play a melodic solo? In this video I try to figure what melodic might mean and then use that that to find a way to practice that and develop the skills needed to make a solo more melodic. There are some really useful exercises to work on for this with your improvisations and this video goes over two of those so you have a way to develop that skill in your playing.

What are your thoughts on Melodic Solo Playing?

I am really curious if you have another definition of melodic than what I use here? or if you have a great way to practice playing more melodic solos?

Content:

0:00 Intro – We know what melodic is, but how to practice it?

0:49 How to figure out what a melody and what melodic is?

1:19 Why Melodic is subjective and we have to live with that.

2:15 Turning it into exercises: What to focus on when improvising

2:59 Using Motifs – The most basic melodic building block

3:13 Beethoven

3:22 That French Song we keep playing

3:38 What do we need to practice?

3:58 Practice using motifs – Rubato

4:31 Example on Autumn Leaves

5:12 Practice in time

5:53 Autumn Leaves Motif solo example

6:14 Call-Response

6:31 Mozart does Call-Response

7:06 Practice Rubato – Call-Response

7:26 Example on Autumn Leaves

8:03 Solo on Autumn Leaves

8:35 Difference between a great and an ok solo?

9:31 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page and help me make more!