If you’re just learning guitar, getting started with playing solos might seem daunting. It’s a big change to go from strumming chords to your favorite songs, to playing lead lines. The best thing is to start out easy, but not too easy. The more you challenge yourself, the better a guitarist you’ll become. Just remember to take everything in bite size chunks as you’re learning. To help you get started with solos, I’m recommending a couple that I’d learn if I was just getting started - one from three different genres. The feeling of learning and playing lead is amazing. Let’s get into it.
I’ve observed hundreds of guitarists over the years from all different skill levels, and the ones who are making a lot of progress often share a lot of the same traits - they have a plan when they sit down to practice, they know the people to go to when they’re facing a hurdle in their playing, and they’re endlessly curious about guitar and music in general.
But outside of all of that, there’s one habit I’ve seen that all of my favorite guitarists have - they practice active listening.
It’s cliche, but everyone has a mini recording studio in their pocket with them at all times. Not only is it stupidly simple to record your audio ideas, you can record yourself via video as well and see everything you were working on at the time, to truly pinpoint issues in your playing. But that’s not the only reason you should record.
Let's dive into three ways guitarists can use recording to see huge improvements in their playing.
What happens when you’re stuck in quarantine for months? Well, for John Petrucci it was putting the wraps on his second solo album ‘Terminal Velocity’. After 15 long years the guitarist has finally found the time to put 9 more solid instrumental guitar tracks to tape, and if that wasn’t enough, he’s also joined for the first time in 10 years by Mike Portnoy.
John Petrucci's first solo album, 'Suspended Animation' came out 15 years ago. Recently Petrucci announced that his new solo album, 'Terminal Velocity' would be coming out this Fall!
JOHN PETRUCCI - TERMINAL VELOCITY - FALL 2020
— John Petrucci (@JPetrucci) June 18, 2020
Artwork by Sean Mosher-Smith at Echo Designlab pic.twitter.com/sfl6lrJ919
