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Over Chord Changes
Soloing
Over Chord Changes
Part 1 - how to solo over chords
using triads
Most songs use more than one chord, so as a lead guitarist you need to
be able to solo confidently through chord changes. In many cases, one
scale will be compatible with all the chords used in the progression.
In
other cases, you'll find the chord changes are less confined to a
diatonic key. The concept we're about to look at is the same for both.
This
is one of your first steps to being able to play fluid and musical
solos over chords. If you want the complete picture, I highly recommend
Guitar Scale Mastery.
The only practical way to master soloing over chord changes is to break
it down into stages. We'll start with identifying chord change notes -
the first note you play when a chord changes...
Identifying
chord change notes in your guitar solos
When a chord changes, you obviously need to know what the new chord is
in order for your solo to be compatible. The first note you use over
that destination chord (sometimes referred to as the "landing note") puts it into context, and from that note you can
continue your soloing phrase around the new chord. Let's first look at
the simplest way to identify a chord change note...
The first thing to identify is what type
of chord you're changing to. The two most common are major and minor. There are
others, such as diminished and augmented, but we'll look at those
another time!
Let's start with changing
to a minor chord.
In this example, the chord change is between C major and F minor.
So, whichever scale we chose to use over C major (e.g. the C major
scale), we need to know how to move into F minor harmoniously.
As we know F minor is a minor
chord, we should therefore know that it will contain the following
tones...
Root (1)
- b3
- 5
These tones make up the minor
triad, the basis of all
minor chords and minor
scales. These are the primary tones we can use as safe
"landing notes" when the chord changes to minor.
In this example, the root would be F
(since our chord is F minor). You should be able to identify the note F
in several positions on the fretboard.
By far the easiest way to identify a soloing position for this new
chord is to build it around an associated chord shape (see
the chord scale relationships lesson
for more on that).
F minor chord
shape (destination chord)
Fret 8
This is a typical minor chord shape we can use to identify, first the root note,
and from that the rest
of the minor triad, providing us with a choice of 3 safe landing notes
for the minor chord change.
For example, we could "land" on the 5th
of the new minor chord, and continue my soloing phrase from that note,
using an appropriate minor scale (this knowledge will come as you learn
more and more scales).
So what made me choose that particular chord shape above? Well, when
soloing, you need to be as efficient and economical as possible with
your finger movements. When changing chord/scale, the closer you are to
the target landing notes, the better.
In this example, we were moving from C major to F minor, so the above F
minor shape would have been well positioned from a C major shape like
below, also at the 8th
fret...
C major chord
shape (the position we changed from)
Fret 8
In summary, use your knowledge of where chord shapes (and therefore
their associated scale patterns) exist on the fretboard to find the shortest route possible
through chord changes.
By identifying chord shapes, you can pick out these key major and minor
triad tones and use them as safe chord change notes. This is the best
way to start out, but by no means the limit.
For now, I want you to have a go at playing over the backing track
below using what we've learned so far. The chord change is, again, C
major to F minor. All I want you to do at the moment is identify the
chord change notes of F minor, like we did above, and try each of them
as landing notes, when the chord changes to F minor. You can play the C
major scale over C major if you're confident with that scale.
If you want to make a bit more of this exercise, you can use the F
minor pattern to play an F minor arpeggio - simply play each note one
after the other in sequence over F minor. Hear how they interact with
the backing chord.
Download the backing track here >
(Right click and "save as")
Fret 8
We'll revisit that backing track in a later lesson to apply a fuller
scale.
How
to solo
over major chord changes
Just like we did before, we need to first identify some safe "landing
notes" for when changing to a major chord.
A major triad contains the following tones:
Root (1) - 3
- 5
So in a given chord shape/scale pattern, if we first learn where these
tones sit, we can lead our solo to them through the chord change. We
can then work from this point, over the new chord, using an appropriate
major scale.
In this example, we're changing from A major to D major, which means
D major is our destination chord and therefore the chord in which we
need to identify these landing tones.
D major chord
shape (destination chord)
Fret 10
So there we can see the major triad tones that provide us with a choice
of safe landing notes as the chord changes.
Again, this isn't the only chord shape we can use for D major, but it's
the most convenient in relation to the position we were already in for
our solo in this example...
A major chord
shape (the position we changed from)
Fret 12
Even though we've only been looking at chord shapes (essentially
arpeggios), we're going to later use these as the scaffolding to build
fuller scales. It's important to learn this in stages - start with
identifying the major/minor triad tones using movable chord shapes and build on
your knowledge of scales as you learn them.
- All major scales include the major triad.
- All minor scales include the minor triad.
- Identify these triad tones through your chord
changes first.
You will learn how to dress these triads with other scale tones as time
goes on.
Part 2 coming
soon!
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