This Beginner's Guide to Guitar Soloing™ is brought to you by the following sponsors:
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Inflection - Your "Voice" on the Guitar
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The guitar is among the most exressive of all musical instruments. This is because the
guitarist has direct contact with the sound source (the strings) throughout the duration
of every note. By varying the picking technique from using fingers or changing the picking
angle and dynamics, the guitarist has complete control over the instrument's attack.
Additionally, the neck hand has string contact until the notes die away completely. During
this time, we can use vibrato, string bending and other techniques to give the instrument
it's unique timbre.
Attack: The note's attack is controlled by the pick. The type of pick, angle of attack
how hard you pick and other factors are used to control the sound of the attack phase of the
note.
Decay: The decay phase of the note is the period between the spike of the attack and
the sustain phase. With the guitar, we can think of decay as part of the attack since it
takes place as a result of picking and happens so quickly we don't really have explicit
control. The guitar itself will have more effect over this part of the note.
Sustain: The sustain portion of the guitar note is where we, as guitarists, have the
largest degree of control. Without going into detail, here are two examples of how you can
control the sound of your guitar during this phase of every note.
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Vibrato: Vibrato is a pulsating effect produced by slight variations in pitch.
Guitarists achieve the effect by slightly bending the string just behind the fret up and
down in succession, varying the speed and depth of the vibrato effect appropriately for the
style of music being played.
String Bending: By bending strings behind the fret, we can change the pitch of a
note. This is a very common technique for guitarists and is one of the most expressive.
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Release: This is where the note actually stops. Because of the nature of how a guitar
produces sound, guitarists tend to think more about the beginning of notes and ignore the
end. But, there are subtle and not so subtle ways of controlling whether a note dies out
gradually or suddenly. A note can be stopped by muting with either hand or by letting it
release on its own.
Every note you play should be expressive. To be an effective soloists, you need to be aware
of the note phases instinctively and use them to create your voice on the instrument. We'll
be going into more detail about creating sound from the instrument in later phases of study.
Click to Continue...
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