The biggest problem when you’re trying to learn a new guitar solo is that you’re not Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or Eric Clapton, or whoever’s solo it is that you’re trying to play. Even if you’ve got the guitar tab in front of you, you just can’t get it right.

If you’re learning the solo from guitar tab, you’re playing the right notes but it still doesn’t sound right when you’re playing along to the music. If you’re learning to play it by ear, you just can’t seem to pick out all the notes, especially if it’s one of those lightning fast guitar solos.

Riff Master Pro is software that you install on your computer and it lets you slow down music without changing the pitch so that you can play along to it, perfect it, and speed it up gradually, until you’ve got it mastered at full speed.

If you’re as old as me and tried doing this with vinyl records you’ll know it doesn’t work too well. You can slow down a 45 rpm single to 33 1/3 rpm but the pitch changes. I could even slow down 33 1/3 long play records to 16 rpm (not that I’ve ever seen a 16 rpm record).

With Riff Master Pro, you can slow down a whole song, or just part of it, and the pitch stays the same. You can get the timing of all the notes right and then speed it up until you can play along at full speed. You can even change the pitch if you want to learn the song in a different key.

Slowing the song down but keeping the pitch correct will help you transcribe or tab tunes if you learn them by ear. It will also help you get them spot on if you learn them from tabs or sheet music. It doesn’t just work for the guitar, you can use this for any instrument.

Riff Master Pro has a 10 day free trial – well worth trying it out.

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. It’s main features are:

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

As a guitar player, you will probably use Audacity most to record live audio but you will find being able to change the speed or pitch of recordings useful too.

Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records, or minidiscs. With some sound cards, it can also capture streaming audio.

• Record from microphone, line input, or other sources.
• Dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings.
• Record up to 16 channels at once (requires multi-channel hardware).
• Level meters can monitor volume levels before, during, and after recording.

To record your guitar playing, you can either use a microphone or use a line input.

I use a DigiTech RP155 Modeling Guitar Processor. This is just another name for a multi effects guitar pedal. This box has the advantage of having a USB socket so you can connect it directly to your computer. It then becomes a MIDI device that you can use to record directly to your computer, cutting out any background noise you might get using a microphone.

This is what the DigiTech RP155 looks like:

This is how I connect my guitar to the RP155 and the RP155 to the computer, except I use headphones plugged into the back of the RP155:

Another useful feature of Audacity is that you can dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings. It’s easy to record one guitar part and play it back and at the same time record another guitar part.

You will need the Lame MP3 Encoder to export your recordings to MP3. Like Audacity, it’s free and is a plugin that works from within Audacity itself.

Another free plugin is available for importing MP3 files. This is libmad.

The effects you get with Audacity include:

• Change the pitch without altering the tempo, or vice-versa.
• Remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises.
• Alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects.
• Adjust volumes with Compressor, Amplify, and Normalize effects.
• Other built-in effects include:
  • Echo
  • Phaser
  • Wahwah
  • Reverse

For a guitar player, being able to change the tempo is very useful for learning new songs, or parts of songs that are tricky.

This is one of the best programs I’ve used for recording my guitar playing. It’s probably the best software for recording any type of audio. It’s also one of best pieces of free guitar software you will find.

This is one of my favourite guitar related software programs I have on my computer that I use regularly.

Metronome

Using a metronome is one of the best ways to practice scales. Regular scale practice with the metronome will improve your scale knowledge, speed, timing, improvisation skills, finger strength, and dexterity. Start off at a slow speed and gradually increase the speed as you improve. The free one I use is quite a few years old but more than adequate. The speed can be adjusted from 40 BPM to 208 BPM and the beats can be multiplied by one, two, or four.

Download it here:

etMetro

Here’s one simple exercise using the G Minor Pentatonic scale. Start off with the metronome set to 60 BPM to start off.. Using quarter notes, this is one note a second. Play this repeatedly until you are comfortable with it and then increase the speed of the metronome. At 120 BPM, you’re playing two notes a second. At 180 BPM, three notes a second. And 240 BPM, four notes a second.

This next exercise uses the A Minor Pentatonic scale. With eighth notes, it will be twice as fast as the previous exercise and you will be playing two notes a second at 60 BPM. Do the same as before, practice it over and over until you can do it without making any mistakes and increase the speed of the metronome.

We’re now using sixteenth notes and the C Minor Pentatonic scale. This is again twice as fast as the previous example. You’re playing four notes each beat or sixteen notes each bar. At 60 BPM, you’re playing four notes a second and might be too fast for you to play comfortably. If this is the case, slow down the metronome and start off at a speed you can manage.

This final example uses the B Minor Pentatonic scale and triplets, or three notes a beat.

The tab diagrams are screenshots from Power Tab Editor and can be downloaded from Power Tab Editor Website.

This is another old program but is one I’m still using and it’s still free.

Power Tab Editor

What is the Power Tab Editor?

Power Tab Editor is a tablature authoring tool for the Windows operating system. It is intended to be used to create guitar sheet music, more commonly known to musicians as guitar tablature and bass tablature. (aka guitar tab/bass tab). The program provides the most commonly used symbols in tablature, including chord names, chord diagrams, rhythm slashes, bends, slides, hammer-ons/pull-offs, harmonics and palm muting. A useful piece of software for people who want to learn how to play guitar, and for experienced guitarists who want to transcribe their own music and/or guitar lessons. The software can be used by both acoustic and electric guitar players alike.

What is tablature?

Tablature, or tab for short, is a special form of sheet music used to indicate the fingering patterns used by an instrument. It is most commonly used to notate guitar and bass guitar parts.

Power Tab Editor can also be used to learn songs that have been transcribed by other guitarists.

Some of the other features of Power Tab Editor include:

• Print power tab scores
• Export power tab score to PDF
• Export power tab score to BMP

One of the problems with the export to BMP feature is that it only exports a section at a time, either to a file or to the clipboard. You then have to combine the sections in your graphics software. One way around this, if the score that you want to export fits onto one screen, is to press the Print Screen key on the keyboard and then paste it into your graphics software.

One undocumented but useful feature is the ability to slow down the playback of the tab. All you need to do is change the tempo marker. This can be set to 40-300 BPM. This allows you to learn songs, or tricky parts of songs, at a slower speed.

Power Tab Editor Screenshot

Power Tab Editor Website

Learning scales for guitar over the entire fretboard is a lot easier than you think. It will also improve your lead guitar soloing and speed. This is only true if you use a method that you find interesting and easy to use.

Most methods I’ve tried present the scales on the guitar as a patterns of blocks on the neck of the guitar. You memorise one block pattern and then move up the fretboard and learn the next one.

I’ve always struggled to move up and down to different places on the fretboard using this method. It teaches you to move across the strings and you get stuck to one or two places.

So what if you do manage to memorise all the block patterns for a scale. You’ve then got to do it for all the other scales and keys. I learnt the G blues scale from a book years ago. I learnt the first two or three blocks by memory but found it boring to continue.

I’d struggle to change it to a different key. I could just about manage two blocks.

What Guitar Scale Mastery does is to show you how to learn guitar scales one string at a time, and it’s a lot faster and easier than you might think.

Once you’ve learnt where the notes of the scale are all the way up each string, those block patterns you tried to learn before just come naturally.

There’s theory in this, and again it’s set out in such an easy way that you will wonder why you struggled so much before.

There’s also a lot of practical exercises that reinforce your scale training. There’s single string, two string, and three string exercises that will have you playing guitar solos across and up and down the fretboard.

What you eventually get is a feeling for the notes in the scale and it just comes naturally to play them. Learning to play the scale in a different key then becomes so much easier. And you can then use the same techniques to learn a different scale.

What surprised me the most is the first scale you learn, E major. Now that scale has four sharps in it, F sharp, G sharp, C sharp, and D sharp. I listed those straight out of my head. Before, I would have been counting along the frets on the strings and working out the notes.

When I first started learning music theory, the book I was learning from started with the C major scale which has no sharps or flats in it. The G major scales is next which has one sharp in it, F sharp. After that you get bored and give up.

You don’t get bored and give up with Guitar Scale Mastery. It’s fun and interesting to do. It doesn’t matter how many sharps or flats are in a scale, it just becomes natural to play the right notes.

This isn’t for lazy people, it’s a long term training course that benefits you more the longer you do it. It’s recommended that you give up some time to practice each day. If you’re a keen guitar player, you’re already doing this anyway. I’ve found that even if I don’t pick up my guitar for a couple of weeks, I can still play those scales across and along the fretboard with ease. It’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to do it.

Guitar Scale Mastery

You should now know the difference between the Minor Blues Scale and the Minor Pentatonic Scale if you’ve read the other articles on this site.

The diagram below shows the first box of the E Minor Pentatonic scale.

E Minor Pentatonic Scale First Box

And this diagram shows the first box of the E Minor Blues scale with the added flat 5th notes.

E Minor Blues Scale First Box

As with the minor scales, the major blues scale is the same as its pentatonic version with the blue notes added. The relationship between the major and minor blues box patterns is also the same as with the major and minor pentatonic box patterns.

You can take your minor blues scale and move it three frets down towards the head of the guitar and you then have your major blues scale. The G major blues scale is the same as the E minor blues scale.

Or, take the box patterns and move them down one position so that the first note of the second box is played at the root note or first position and you have your major blues scales.

The following diagrams show the fifth, first, and second boxes of the G minor blues scale.

G Minor Blues Scale Fifth Box - One Octave Lower

G Minor Blues Scale First Box

G Minor Blues Scale Second Box

The following diagrams show the fifth, first, and second major blues scale box patterns on guitar fretboard for the G major blues scale. Note how it is identical to the E minor blues scale.

G Major Blues Scale Fifth Box - One Octave Lower

G Major Blues Scale First Box

G Major Blues Scale Second Box

I’m not going to show you how to play all the boxes in different keys. You should be able to work them out now or you can download this free ebook. There’s no music theory involved, it’s just a handy quick reference guide that shows you all the notes on each string on the fretboard for the major blues scales in every key including the sharps and flats.

This is a Windows based program, sorry Mac users, that should work on any computer that has Windows 95 or above and Internet Explorer 4 or above. Just right click the link below and select save as to download to your computer. Run the file, it doesn’t have to be installed.

I you’ve read my article Minor Blues Scale, you should know how to play the minor blues scale box patterns on guitar in the key of E. You should also be aware of the difference between the minor pentatonic scales and the blues guitar scales. Also, you already know about the blue notes, or flat 5th notes.

This free ebook is a handy quick reference guide that shows all the notes and box patterns on guitar fretboard for the minor blues scale in every key including the sharps and flats. It’s not a theory textbook but it will help you to learn the minor blues scales as long as you practice them.

If you need to put together a 12 bar blues riff or solo in a particular key, just click on the button for that key in the ebook and you will see all the notes on the fretboard and all the box patterns, including the ones one octave higher than the root notes and the box patterns below the root notes for the minor blues scale in that key.

This is a Windows based program, sorry Mac users, that should work on any computer that has Windows 95 or above and Internet Explorer 4 or above. Just right click the link below and select save as to download to your computer. Run the file, it doesn’t have to be installed.

This ebook is similar to the Minor Pentatonic Scales Ebook except it shows all the notes and all the boxes for the major pentatonic scales in every key.

Again, there’s no theory involved. There’s no talk of tones and half tones or steps and half steps.

The major pentatonic scale seems to be less commonly used or learnt than the minor pentatonics one but still has its uses to good effect, especially when the two scales are used together. Most of the rock guitar or lead guitar courses teach you the minor pentatonic scale from the start and don’t even mention the major scale.

So, if you need to put a solo or riff together in a particular key, this ebook will show you the notes and boxes. It shows all five positions, including the ones an octave above and an octave below the root note. It shows them for the sharp and flat keys as well, such as Bb, Eb, F#, etc.

This is a Windows based program, sorry Mac users, that should work on any computer that has Windows 95 or above and Internet Explorer 4 or above. Just right click the link below and select save as to download to your computer. Run the file, it doesn’t have to be installed.

You should be able to learn the five box patterns of the minor pentatonic scale from my other articles. What you might have trouble with is memorizing all the patterns in different keys. You’ll probably learn them in a couple of the commonly used keys.

You should be able to play the first box in any key because it starts at the root note on the sixth string, and you know all the notes of the sixth string now don’t you. The second box is easy too because it starts where the first box ends. The fifth box one octave lower ends where the first box starts so that’s not too bad either.

What do you do with all the other boxes if you’re playing in an unfamiliar key? What do you do if you’ve got to put together a solo in a key like F#, Ab, Eb, or some other less common key? How do you move up and down the fretboard in a key you’re not familiar with?

This is where this free ebook comes in. It shows you all the boxes of the minor pentatonic scale in every key including the sharps and flats. It doesn’t include any theory at all. It’s just a handy reference guide. Just pick the key you want and it will show you all the boxes and notes for the minor pentatonic scale for that key.

This is a Windows based program, sorry Mac users, that should work on any computer that has Windows 95 or above and Internet Explorer 4 or above. Just right click the link below and select save as to download to your computer. Run the file, it doesn’t have to be installed.

This is one of the best, if not the best, lead guitar tutorials I’ve seen. It includes pretty much everything needed to create impressive blues lead guitar solos. It covers scales, patterns, licks, techniques, and a lot more.

Not only does it cover lead guitar playing, it also teaches rhythm guitar. It shows the usual 7th chords along with 9th, 11th, 13th, and altered chords to make your rhythm playing more interesting. It also shows different variations of the chords, many that I haven’t seen before. It starts with simple rhythms and progresses on to more complicated ones.

The lead guitar sections teach you the major and minor blues scales and patterns and how to use them together in your solos. It shows the techniques used such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, tweedlies, and pinch harmonics. It also shows some of the common licks that you will use in your solos.

The lessons and examples are well written in two easy to understand PDFs using guitar tabs, one for the lead guitar and one for the rhythm guitar.

There are mp3 files for all the lead and rhythm guitar examples, at both slow speed and full speed.

Best of all are the videos of the lessons which you can view in Windows Media Player. Here, he goes through the lessons in detail showing some extra tips he doesn’t mention in the books.  There are slow and full speed video versions of the examples.

Included as bonuses are backing tracks you can practice your new soloing skills to, turn around and ending licks, and solo examples by Eric Clapton, BB King, and Albert King.

I would definately score this ten out of ten for content and value. It’s well over 2GB in size with all the videos and mp3 files. The good thing is that it’s all downloadable. It’s not one of those courses where you have to login to the site to watch the videos. You don’t have to download it all in one go either. Good if you’re bandwidth is limited.

If you want to learn how to play blues guitar licks, this is definitely the course for you.

Playing Through The Blues