Let's learn from the best. Take a look at this classic solo part from Hotel California by Eagles. The song is in B minor key, and it's also the opening chord of the solo progression.
Colorful circles on the fretboard represent degrees of the currently played chord, which you can see on top of the fretboard. For now we will use only Root, Third (Minor and Major), and Fifth. Every degree always has the same color, so you can easily spot them across different chords or different parts of the neck. Greyed out notes, without a circle, show degrees of the underlying song scale, which is B minor. The frets on which the solo is played will be highlighted with a green background.
Most solo notes can be split in two categories: target notes, and passing notes. Target notes bring a lot of color to a solo, they ring longer and usually are played on a downbeat. Passing notes are usually short and grouped together in-between target notes. As you listen to the solo, try to find target notes and take note of their relation to the currently playing chord tones.
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1.00x
Now let's figure out what's happening in this solo chord by chord:
- on downbeat we land on minor third of the chord, which is a very stable note, it defines the minor quality of the chord. We hang there a little and move down to the 11th fret of the 3rd string. This note is not a part of the triad, it's the perfect fourth of the chord, it sounds a bit unstable and dark relative to the chord.
- we again land on the third of the chord. This note is particularly interesting as it's not a part of the B minor scale. It's the most important note of the V7 chord and it creates a lot of tension because it's right next to the root of the scale, and wants to resolve to it. We start and finish the chord on it.
- if you've been noodling around with pentatonic, this sound will be familiar to you. Major second, the characteristic note of this chord, is also a root of the underlying B minor scale, so we just noodle around it for a bit.
- we start with a bend to the fifth of the chord, but our target note again is the third, which is not in the B minor scale, so it sounds exotic.
- we start on sixth of the chord, but then start moving towards the root by hitting mostly chord tones.
- similar to the previous chord, mostly chord tones, and back to root. You may notice that over the last 2 chords the solo sounded tame, simple and safe, just sliding down the neck, this is because target notes were roots of the underlying chords.
- targeting the third again multiple times with half-step bends, this creates some tension, but not too much, since note on 7th fret is the fifth of the B minor scale as you can see on the fretboard.
- we've seen this one, but this time, we just target the root, and avoid the tension of the third to end this part of the solo in a relaxed way. Instead of hitting the third, we hit flat seventh and root of the underlying scale. If you just play V7 chord and target these notes, it will sound dissonant, grab a guitar and try it:But since here they are just passing notes, the dissonance is hard to notice.
This example shows that knowing your chord tones allows you to create more interesting and dynamic solos by targeting different tones, and using passing notes to connect them.
How does Fretty help with that?
and go back to the fretboard above. You will now see a few things there:
Notes in circles show roots and fifth of current and next chords. Notes of next chord are transparent. This allows you to see relations of different chord degrees between current and next chords. For example, you can see that fifth of the i chord is also the root of the next V7 chord, so you can land on it on the first chord, and leave it ringing for the next one to create a stable long sound connecting two chords together
Roots of next chords are highlighted with a red circle to more easily spot them and plan your way to them to practice your tone targeting.
The fretboard is now limited to the area where the solo is played, so you can focus on it and not get overwhelmed with too many notes.
With this layout, you can start practicing targeting your root notes. You can start as simple as you want, slow down the track, and try to hit them on the downbeats, using greyed out notes of the underlying B minor scale as your passing tones. You can sometimes take a look at the top of the fretboard to see name of the current chord if you get lost. Click for more configuration options.
With time, by practicing different target notes, this will teach you a few things:
How different intervals sound over the chord, and associate them with color
Degree positions of the chords within the scale
Degree relation between consecutive chords and with this better voice leading
Scale patterns and their degree locations
Positions of different intervals on the fretboard
Octave positions for easier fretboard navigation
CAGED layouts
By knowing all these things, you will navigate the fretboard much more easily and craft or improvise your solos with more intention and creativity, instead of just noodling around over the pentatonic or minor scale and hoping to hit something good.
Have fun practicing! Trying to solo over a backing track is much more fun than just running through exercises, and it will keep you motivated to practice consistently, which is the most important factor in making progress.