by Hal Rodriguez

A good guitar solo isn’t just about well chosen notes, technique, or attitude. It’s also about rhythm. Sometimes, we get so caught up in learning different scales, arpeggios, and techniques, that we overlook increasing our rhythmic vocabulary as well. I’ve personally found that it helps to practice different rhythms over a simple melodic idea. Consider the example below where I ascend on the B minor scale (with an additional chromatic note), and alternate between using sixteenth notes and eighth note triplets. I recommend that you apply this idea to other scales or arpeggios using other combinations of rhythms. Overtime, you’ll notice how switching between different rhythms within a bar can open up new ways of phrasing your lines in both your solos and compositions.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

If you’re stuck in a rut playing the same licks, simply changing where you place them in a bar can effectively create more interest in your solos. The following is an exercise on playing the same blues lick (Lick 1) and shifting it forward in the bar by rests of various length. For example in Lick 2, the phrase is displaced by a quarter note rest, and in Lick 3, by a half note rest. Play these against an F7 or Fmin7 backing track so you can hear all the variations these rhythmic displacements create. Try this with your own licks and figure out other possible variations. Not only will this heighten your sense of rhythm and generate more interest in your solos, it will also force you to create more space and taste!

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

If you’re looking to make your blues licks over dominant 7 chords more interesting, there’s a lot you can do with triads. Let’s consider what to do over the I chord in a 12 bar blues progression in the key of F, for example. We all know the F minor pentatonic scale is a popular choice to improvise with, but since F7 is also the V chord in the key of Bb major, we may also use the Bb major triad (Bb, D, F). Have a look at the lick below. The Bb triad I use at the beginning of bar 2 makes the line more interesting by introducing the 13th (D) over F7, and makes for an efficient transition between two commonly used pentatonic boxes. Experiment with this triad in other positions on the neck and see if you can use it to move between different pentatonic shapes to help you break out of boxes. Stay tuned to future blogs, where I’ll demonstrate other triads you can play over the IV and V chord in a blues.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

There’s nothing quite as special as hearing two guitars play harmonized lines. Just like vocal harmonies, they accentuate the melody and create great points of interest in a song or solo. But even if you don’t have Derek Trucks or Warren Hayes around to harmonize your lines, there’s a lot you can do on your own. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I discussed harmonizing lines over a dominant 7 chord. In this installment, we’ll consider our options over a minor chord.

Consider the A minor lick in bar 1 above. In bar 2, I play the same lick but harmonize the last three notes (C, C, and A) in thirds, resulting in double stops. In the key of A minor, the third of C is E, and the third of A is C. There are other options to explore, some of which you might like more than others. In the subsequent bars, I’ve harmonized the lick in fourths (bar 3), fifths (bar 4), sixths (bar 5), and sevenths (bar 6). Compare each one and notice how the different types of harmony change the mood of the lick. I personally like bar 6 the best as the sevenths create a jazzier feel. Experiment with applying these ideas to your own licks and tune in to future blogs for even more ideas on harmony.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

Here’s a great way to find new licks and strengthen your ability to visualize scales. The idea is to take a lick and shift each note up to the next degree within the scale without changing your phrasing. In bar 1, I start with a basic A minor pentatonic lick, which I then move up in the scale resulting in the lick in bar 2. I do this progressively until I turnaround to the original lick an octave higher at the 17th fret in bar 6. Through this process, my original lick yields four new ones that I hadn’t thought of before. Try this with your own licks in other scales to expand your vocabulary. It will be a mental challenge to move them up while still staying in key, but overtime you’ll gain an improved ability to visualize scales across the neck.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

In my last blog, I discussed using 9 sus4 arpeggios as an alternative to playing basic triads while soloing. As with any new idea you learn, it’s essential to come up with exercises or drills that will help you assimilate it into your playing so you can readily use the idea while improvising. Below is an exercise where I play those arpeggios in two octaves over the I, ii, V, and vi chords in the key of G. I’ve chosen those chords so that the arpeggio’s shape stays intact (over the IV chord for example, the 4th would have to be raised by one fret to stay in key). If your resolution this year has been to get better at improvising, make sure you come up with plenty of exercises to work on for any new ideas you learn!

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

A great way to expand your soloing vocabulary is to incorporate arpeggios instead of relying on scales alone. A good first step is to familiarize yourself with triads by playing only the root, third, and fifth of the chords you are playing over as demonstrated in bars 1 to 2. However, I’ve found that replacing the third with a fourth, and going up to the ninth, leads to a more sophisticated and modern sound. Compare the line in bars 3 to 4 to the first two to see how those intervals create more interest than regular triads. Try this idea over different chord progressions. In the process of finding the 9th sus4 arpeggio forms of other chords, you’ll gain a new arsenal of licks as well as a deeper understanding of the guitar neck.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

Just when you thought this scale had nothing more to offer, here’s Part 2 of using the pentatonic scale in new ways. In Part 1, I demonstrated how to solo over an A minor chord by using both the A and D minor pentatonic scales. Continuing with the logic of treating A minor as the vi chord in the key of C major, it follows that the iii chord in this key is E minor, which contains the notes E, G, and B. By simply adding it’s 4th (A) and 7th (D), you will create an E minor pentatonic scale (bar 1). This scale also works over the A minor chord because it shares many of the same notes as the A minor pentatonic scale and introduces one new note, the 9th (B).

This means you can solo over a vi chord using minor pentatonic scales built from the chord’s root, fourth, and fifth. In bars 2 to 4 above, notice how a typical A minor pentatonic lick creates very different sounds when I simply transpose it to the D and E scales over an A minor chord. Try practicing this idea in other keys. For example, if you had to solo over an F#min, you could use the F#, B, and C# minor pentatonic scales. By expanding your soloing choices to three pentatonic scales, you’ll find new sounds and get more mileage out of your old licks!

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

There’s no reason to turn to exotic scales when you can still discover new sounds from the minor pentatonic with this simple substitution approach. Let’s take the common scenario of improvising over an A minor vamp in a rock or metal context. Over this chord, playing the A minor pentatonic scale is the tried and true soloing choice (bar 1). In these situations, the A minor chord is usually treated as the vi chord, or relative minor, of C major. Now in the key of C major, the ii chord is D minor, which contains the notes D, F, and A, but if you add it’s fourth (G) and seventh (C), you’ll get a D minor pentatonic scale (bar 2).

What this means is that you actually have two minor pentatonic scales you can improvise with over a vi chord: one based on the root and the other from the fourth. Notice that one of the benefits of this is that just from a visual standpoint, any licks you play in A minor pentatonic can be repeated exactly 2 and a ½ steps up and still sound in key. Measures 3 and 4 demonstrate how I use the same lick over both pentatonic scales to create different sounds over an A minor chord. Experiment doing this with all your pentatonic licks and in other keys. The reason the D minor pentatonic scale also works over the A minor chord is that it only adds one new note, F, to the A minor pentatonic scale, which is simply the chord’s minor 6th. Tune in to future blogs where I discuss other minor pentatonic substitutions that will bring in more interesting note choices to your playing.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.

by Hal Rodriguez

In my last blog, I introduced the idea of using the mixolydian mode in addition to the blues scale for soloing over dominant 7 chords. If you practiced the hybrid scale exercises I demonstrated then, visualizing both scales should slowly start to get easier and you can begin improvising with them. Here are a couple of licks over C7 that show how I combine both scales to create interest in my phrases. Notice that I’ve also included passing tones to add more movement to each lick. Practice these ideas over a backing track and try to come up with your own. In time, your vocabulary will grow not just from seeing both scales on the neck, but from naturally hearing the mixolydian mode while improvising.

Hal Rodriguez is a Toronto based guitarist, bassist, music teacher, and published writer. For lessons and transcription services, he can be contacted at halromusic@gmail.com or followed on Twitter @halwit.