18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

List Of Tips

Page

1 Simplify The Scale: One Pattern Only 7

2 Repeat In Octaves 13

3 Get the Groove 15

4 Same Number, Same Sound 17

5 Get Your Dynamic Right 19

6 Enhance Your Dynamic Even More 22

7 Get Your Tone Right 24

8 Bending Notes: Where And How 26

9 The Approach Slide From Below 29

10 Quarter Bend On 3 31

11 The Downward Slide On 4 33

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

12 Sing And Play 35

13 The Drop From 1 37

14 Double Stop Bends 39

15 Slide And Double Stop 42

16 Double Stop And Quarter Bend 44

17 Combine All Of The Above! 45

18 Where Do You Go From Here? 47

Thanks to Kevin King for proofreading.

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos

Sound Professional

Tommaso Zillio

musictheoryforguitar.com

Hello Internets, so nice to see you... and welcome to this eBook!

The aim of this eBook is to make your pentatonic solos sound great!

The idea here is NOT to make your solos harder, or more difficult, or more complex.

Instead the idea is to take few notes and make them sound good so that you get that kind
of professional sound out of your pentatonic solo.

This is an open system

This is a book of building blocks: each tip will give you one thing that will help you sound
professional. Each of the building blocks is very simple, if you take them one by one, and
can be learned in minutes.

Indeed they are so simple you may even wonder if it’s worth learning them. I personally
call these building blocks ”MICRO-MOVES”.

What is a Micro-Move?

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

A Micro-Move is a trick that is very simple by itself. So simple that if you learn only one,
it does not make a big difference in your playing.

But when you start learning 2-3 of them and you combine them together then you WILL
see a dramatic difference in your playing.

All these tips are like that. And you will not find them explained this way anywhere on
the internet... because they are TOO SIMPLE!

Right now I want you to go through this eBook QUICKLY and try all these Tips. Do not
spend too much time for each one of them: get a ”feeling” for each of them and move on.

Maybe all these tips will work for you immediately.

Maybe only some of these tips will work for you. That’s okay.

Maybe some tips will work for you now, and some other tips that don’t work for you now
will work for you later, when you look at this ebook again. That’s great too!

My suggestions are:

• Go through this ebook. Whatever makes sense to you: learn it. Whatever doesn’t
make sense to you: just ignore it.

• Learn what you find useful. Forget the rest.

• Whenever you get stuck on a tip, just ignore it and go on to the next tip.

• The important thing here is to make you a better player... not to learn every single
thing that I explain!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

A couple more notes about the content of the eBook:

• In this eBook we explain everything in the key of A minor. This is to simplify your
learning. Once you have done everything in A minor, it will be easy to move it to
other keys.

• Throughout this eBook you will find links to video examples. The webpage with all
the videos is here:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html

• In the video examples you will find some phrases that are not transcribed in this
eBook. Why?

1. Transcribing is good for you. This is a good moment to start doing it!

2. I want you to learn to do YOUR OWN combinations, not learning by heart the
combinations I play. For guitar improvisation, rote memorization is death.

3. If you learn the Micro-Moves in this eBook, transcribing the examples will
be super-easy.

And now... LET’S GET STARTED!!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

TIP 1 Simplify The Scale: One Pattern Only

If you are like most guitar players, you probably know this scale pattern:

And you have played it on your guitar up and down this way (you don’t have to do this
now):

  
8
5 8 5

5 7
5 7
5 8 8 5
7 5
7 5
5 7 7 5
5 8 8 5

If you are a little bit more advanced, then you may also know these other patterns:

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

(If you’ve never seen the patterns above YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEARN THEM RIGHT
NOW! Keep reading...)

All the patterns above are fine and good — but if we watch guitar legends like Jimi Hen-
drix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck... or even more modern players who use pentatonic scales,
like Eric Johnson or John Frusciante,1 they do not seem to follow these scale patterns at
all.

Of course, they KNOW these patterns. They just don’t use them much.

What they do instead is to think of the pentatonic scale in this other way:
1
Notice the substantial difference in playing styles between Eric Johnson and John Frusciante... and yet
both use the pentatonic scale. This is a testament on how versatile this scale is!

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8
8 10 12
 5 7
5 7 9
8 10

3 5 7
3 5

 
8
15 17
 10 12 14
12 14
13 15 17

10 12
8 10 12

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(You find these scales on the video examples webpage:

musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 1)

At first sight, this looks much more complex... but as we will see in a moment, it’s actually
much simpler!

Why?

Because all the shapes above are just made from this simple core shape:

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

... repeated every 2 strings:

Every red box in the images above is (in)2 a different octave of your pentatonic scale. We
are going to use octaves later in this eBook.

You may have noticed that it’s not entirely true that the shapes repeat: in the second
pattern, the core shape looks a bit wonky on the B and G strings. We don’t have to concern
ourself about why this happens, we only need to remember this little oddity.
2
You could say that every box is IN a different octave of the scale. You could also say that every box
simply IS a different octave of the scale, since each box contains all the notes of the scale!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

What I want you to do right now is to get familiar with this pattern. Just play it up and
down a few times until you get it under your fingers.

What are the advantages of this ”core pattern”?

Well, first of all with this pattern you will be able to move up and down the fretboard
much easier, without ”getting stuck”.

But we are going to see another, more important killer advantage in the next tip.

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TIP 2 Repeat In Octaves

How do you spot a beginner at guitar improvisation? They play a phrase... then they
play a completely different phrase... then another one... and so on forever. Their phrases
do not connect together to form a unified solo.

They ramble on and on and on...

A good first step to get better at improvising is to repeat your phrases... but as you’ll
notice immediately, if you repeat the exact same phrase over and over again, it gets boring
very fast.

So here’s what we are doing in this tip:

1. Play a simple phrase on the core shape we have seen at the previous tip,

2. Repeat it in a different octave.

For instance you can:

Play it here... then here... ... and then here!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

(You find an example of repeated phrase on the video examples page:

musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 2)

Of course you can play these shapes in any order! Personally, I am partial to playing them
”descending”, that is playing the phrase on the high octave first, and then repeat it lower
and lower, just like the figure above.

But maybe you prefer going from lower to higher... or in any other order!

Thinking about the scale patterns as we have seen them before totally helps play phrases
in octaves super easy to do.

Do not underestimate how important this tip is by how simple it looks. YES it is really
simple... but it sounds great.

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TIP 3 Get the Groove

One of the main ingredients to sounding professional on a backing track is to ’get’ the
rhythm. Of course, that’s easy to say and it’s really hard to do in practice! :-)

So we’re gonna do a pretty unconventional exercise here to make sure that you ”get” the
rhythm of your backing track. It works this way:

1. You’re gonna pick ONE note on your pentatonic.

• I recommend for the first few times that you pick the root note (that’s the note
indicated with a diamond shape in the patterns above).

• So if your backing track is in A minor you pick the A note. If your backing
track is in G major you pick the G note and so on.

• I also suggest you play this note on either the first or the second string of your
guitar.

2. Then I want you to improvise on your backing track using only that note.

• You can play this note once, twice, faster, slower... you can play it loud or
quiet... You can do anything you want but you can NOT bend that note and
you can NOT change the note.

What is the aim all of this? It’s to make sure that your solo is rhythmically interesting
before you add on any notes to it. Once the rhythm is interesting, you can play any note
in the pentatonic scale pattern (or really, in any scale) and it will sound good.

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But if your solo is not rhythmically interesting... then I’m afraid your solo will likely not
be interesting at all!

Rhythm really is king in music!

If you want an example of how this looks (and sounds ), in the next video I demonstate
this exercise to a student... and so you can see exactly how these work. I recommend you
try it:

VIDEO: musictheoryforguitar.com/guitar-improvisation-change-rhythm.html

While this exercise looks weird at first, it will make miracles for your improvisation.

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TIP 4 Same Number, Same Sound

Let’s now see what’s ”inside” the scale pattern. We start by numbering the notes by scale
degree.3

The minor pentatonic scale that we are considering has scale degrees 1 3 4 5 and 7. This
scale does not have the degrees 2 and 6.4 The ”1” is also called the root of the scale.

If we indicate the scale degrees of each note in our patterns, here’s what we get:

3
Some people call this ”intervals”... but that’s wrong :-)
4
We are not concerned here on WHY they are numbered in this strange way.

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I know you are looking at this and thinking ”O.M.G. how am I going to remember all of
this?!?”

But don’t worry... I’ve got you covered. See, just like the scale shape repeats every 2
strings, the numbers repeat too. Indeed, if we look at our core shape, here’s what we see:

Why are we doing all this? Because notes with the same number sound the same.

For instance, every time you play the root of the scale (”1”) it sounds the same. If you
play it on different octaves it will of course sound higher or lower in pitch... but it is the
same note, and it will have the same ”emotional meaning” to your audience.

By learning the scale patterns the way we have seen before before, you are naturally
starting to learn these correspondences between number/position and sound, because
the shape and the numbers simply repeat every 2 strings.

What does that mean? Simply that once you get used to these scale patterns, you will
automatically play in a more melodic way.

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TIP 5 Get Your Dynamic Right

In this tip we talk about a major component of a ”professional” guitar sound: dynamics.

When we talk about dynamics we simply mean that not all the notes are played at the
same volume. Instead, some notes are played louder and some notes are played quieter.

This seems such an obvious thing to say... and yet whenever I hear somebody improvising
on the pentatonic, THIS is what makes the difference between them sounding great and
professional or just sounding bad.

So what we want to do?

We want to get control of our dynamics. One thing is just to know that you have to play
things at a different dynamic and another thing is actually being able to do it in practice.

So how do you do it? Well, we can start by playing a scale up and down and alternate
one high-dynamic (loud) note with one low-dynamic (quiet) note (Exercise 1):

 
p f p f p f p f p f p f p f
f
8

8 10 12
 5 7
5 7 9
8 10

3 5 7
3 5

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In the score above, ”f” means ”forte” (Italian for ”LOUD!”) and ”p” means ”piano” (Ital-
ian for ”quiet”)5

It’s pretty hard to do it with precision and clarity, especially when you try to increase the
speed. So take it slow and DO make really sure that the loud notes sound loud, and the
quiet notes sound quiet.

(If the scale is too easy for you, try to improvise something, always alternating one loud
note and one quiet note)

My recommendation is to exaggerate the difference between loud and quiet as much as

you can.

Indeed, as an exercise, just be ridiculous about this: play the loud note so hard than the
string buzzes, and the next note so quiet you can barely hear it.

Then you can try to accent one note in every three: Loud, quiet, quiet (Exercise 2):

 
p p f p p f p p f p p f p p
f
8

8 10 12
 5 7
5 7 9
8 10

3 5 7
3 5

Or you can try one note every four: loud, quiet, quiet, quiet.

After you have done this for scales, try to do this while you improvise.
5
Why everybody is using the Italian symbols for this is beyond me. It’s probably tradition. I am Italian,
so this does not bother me... I just feel for you guys.

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It’s not easy, but even a little improvement here goes a long way!

The important thing here is that you get control of your picking hand so that the picking
hand does whatever YOU want it to do.

You need to be able to accent the note YOU want to accent rather than letting the hand do
whatever it wants :-)

Again, this seems so obvious and simple... but when you REALLY get control of that, you
will hear a big difference in your playing.

(You find both exercises 1 and 2 in the video examples webpage:

musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 5)

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TIP 6 Enhance Your Dynamic Even More

Dynamic is not just playing harder or softer. You can use other techniques to make those
notes sound louder or quieter.

For instance, whenever you want to play a note at a low dynamic, you can play it quietly
(...duh!) but you can also palm mute the note. The palm mute gives the feeling that the
note is at a lower dynamic even if the actual volume of the note is the same.

Whenever you want to play a note loud instead, you can ”rake the strings”.

How do you rake the strings?

Let’s say you want to play a note on the third string (the G string) of your guitar. To do
the rake, you mute the D string, the A string, and the E string (strings 4, 5, 6) with the
palm of your picking hand.

Then you hit strings 6, 5, 4, and 3 on your guitar, but you’re gonna let only string number
3 to ring freely. This create more ”attack” noise when you play the note, and it makes it
sound louder and more powerful.

Look at this video on the video examples webpage to see how it’s done:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 6

So remember that dynamics is not just ”loud & quiet”. It’s also HOW you play those
notes.

And remember that one thing is to know this in theory... and a completely different thing

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is to practice it and being able to do it whenever you want without thinking too much.

So make sure you practice the exercise in the tip above (alternating loud a quiet notes),
only this time you use palm mutes and rakes rather than playing harder or softer.

You can see me playing one of these exercises in the video examples webpage:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 6

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TIP 7 Get Your Tone Right

Guitar tone is very personal: some people like more distortion, some a clean sound. Some
people like a warm dark tone, and some like a high frequency piercing tone.

All that is completely up to you and I’m not here to tell you what will work best... because
it depends on you, your taste, the style you play, and a number of other things.

But there is one thing in common to all guitar players who have good tone — which is
why I call that ”the only constant of guitar tone.”

And it’s that: whatever kind of tone you dial in, there MUST be an audible difference in
sound between a note played loud and a note played quiet.

That is to say: your tone must have some dynamic.

We spent some time in the tips above to get our dynamic under control, and if you keep
practicing them you will see that there is more to it than meets the eye.

Since we are spending time practicing dynamics, we want to make sure that your dy-
namic can also be heard when you play through your amp.

Now if you play through your amp with a clean sound (without a compressor), this hap-
pens: play a note louder, and that note actually sounds louder (at a higher volume) than
when you play it quiet. No surprises here.

But if you use some compression or some distortion, this is not going to happen — or at
least, the difference in volume between notes you play loud and notes you play quiet is

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not going to sound quite the same as before.

But at the same time, there will be some difference in tone between notes you play loud
or quiet.

For instance, with distortion, a note you play louder will sound more distorted than a
note played quiet (rather than being just louder, as it would happen with a clean sound).

This is great: as long as you can hear a difference, then your dynamics are coming
through!

Here’s the problem though: If you have too much distortion or compression on, then the
difference between a note you play loud and a note you play quiet will not be audible at
all. And so whatever you play will sound monotone and lifeless.

Don’t be this kind of guitarist :-)

Again, I’m not telling you how much distortion you need to use or what kind of tone you
want: these are personal choices.

Just make sure that when you dial in your tone, the nuances in your playing are coming
through! And if they are not coming through, try lowering your distortion or compression
just a little bit.

You can hear an example of dynamic tone in the video examples page. Notice how the
tone is ’clean-ish’ when I play quiet and distorted when I play loud:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 7

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TIP 8 Bending Notes: Where And How

Let’s look again at our core pattern for the pentatonic scale. The notes marked in green
can be bent up a whole step (2 frets):

The notes marked in red need to be bent up a whole and a half tone (that’s 3 frets):

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It’s much more common to bend the notes in green because it’s easier to bend a whole
step than a whole step and a half.

It’s much less common to bend the notes in red, though it is possible and it has a very
emotional and powerful sound.

Make sure you know exactly what notes you can bend and how much you need to bend
them to sound in tune with your scale.

Bending notes precisely in tune is again one of the little things that really make the dif-
ference between how professionals and amateurs sound.

How do you train bending in pitch? Here’s how:

Connect your guitar to a tuner. First of all, make sure that the guitar is in tune.

Then play one of the notes: start with one of the green notes in the diagrams above. Bend
it up a full step and check with the tuner that you’re actually bending it perfectly into the

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right note.

So for instance, if you are bending the D note up a whole step, the tuner should now
indicate an E note.

Now repeat until you can get it in tune every single time.

After you do this exercise and start hearing when a note is bent exactly in pitch, you’re
going to notice really soon that some guitar players bend consistently slightly sharp or
slightly flat. That is great – but only if this is the sound you’re after!

This is an artistic choice: a slightly flat bend gives a ’cooler’ sound to your solo... and a
slightly sharp bend gives a more ’frantic’ sound to your solos.

That’s also great as long as you are consistent and you do it deliberately. Bends that are
’randomly’ sharp or flat do not sound good at all!

It’s a good idea to train yourself to bend perfectly in tune first, so you develop a better
control of your bends. If you can bend in tune, then bending sharper or flatter when you
want these sounds will come easy and natural.

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TIP 9 The Approach Slide From Below

This is a super simple trick — but I hear several pros using it, so it’s worth examining.

This is the ”approach slide from below.” How does that work?

You choose any one of the notes of the pentatonic scale, but rather than playing that note,
you start by playing the note one fret below (you see these notes in orange in the diagrams
below).

Yes, that note is out of key! But don’t worry!

When you play it, you immediately slide one fret up, into the ”right” pentatonic note, as
the arrow indicates.

Of course you can do this in any shape of the pentatonic:

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Yes, it’s that simple!

But before you discount this as ”too simple” have a look at the video below and hear the
dramatic difference that this tip make even on a simple phrase.

In this video I play first the ”plain” phrase, then I add the approach slide to the first note,
then the second note, and so on.

See the video on the video example page:

musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 9

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TIP 10 Quarter Bend On 3

This trick applies to the 3rd note in your pentatonic scale (the note in orange). This is the
note that is more often ’quarter bent’.

But what is a quarter bend?

It’s simply a bend that does not go up a half step, but stays somewhere in between the
original note and the next note on the fretboard.

We also call this the ”smear bend”, and we use it to add flavor to this note.

See how to do the Quarter Bend on 3 and some example phrases on the video example
page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 10

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Now the beauty of this trick is that this works very well in several situations.

So for instance when you can do a Drop From 1 (see Tip 13) and follow it immediately
with the Quarter Bend On 3 and it will sound great.

Or you can do a Downward Slide On 4 (see Tip 11) and then play a Quarter Bend On 3.

You may have heard these combinations before – now you understand how they are done.

Remember that all these elements are incredibly simple... but their power lies in their
combination.

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TIP 11 The Downward Slide On 4

This a trick used by every professional player on the planet. It is so commonplace that
when I show it to you, you’re gonna recognize it everywhere.

You’ll find it in solos, you’ll find it in famous riffs (”Life In The Fast Lane” comes to
mind...), you’ll even find it in rhythm parts (think Jimi Hendrix-style).

It’s a trick so simple, it’s easy to underestimate and yet if you incorporate it into your
playing, it really gives ”that sound” that you are searching for.

It works this way. Follow these instructions to the letter:

1. Put your ring finger on the fifth note on the pentatonic (the note marked with the
number five),

2. Play the note,

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3. Slide the ring finger down to the fourth note,

4. Optionally pull off to the third note of the pentatonic.

As you can see, it’s incredibly simple... and yet, whenever I see beginners do something
similar, they don’t slide with the ring finger and they tend to slide with their index finger
instead.

It seems like a small thing, but it give a completely different sound!

If you take the time to listen to the guitar greats, you will see that in every great solo and
in every great riff, when they play this idea they always slide with the ring finger.

See how to do the Downward Slide On 4 and some example phrases on the video example
page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 11

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TIP 12 Sing And Play

(Don’t miss the video link at the end of this tip!)

In an ideal world, you would just think about a musical idea, a melody, a phrase, and
your fingers would automatically play it on your guitar.

It is a good bet though that this is not happening for you just yet.

How do I know? Because it’s NORMAL! :) We humans are just not wired that way.

But... we can learn!

So in this tip I show you a way to ”connect” your mind and your fingers that does not
rely on theory or thinking about the scale.

If you try this tip even just a little bit, you are going to see MASSIVE improvements in
your playing.

And yes, if you keep practicing it, you WILL be able to ”just think” of an idea and play it.

But what is this Tip exactly? What do you have to do? Here it is:

You have to sing while you play.

Meaning: I want you to sing (or hum, or mutter under your breath more or less in pitch)
the same thing that you are playing on your guitar.

Now before you close this eBook shaking your heads... hear me out. I know what I’m
asking of you. After all most of us guitar players HATE to sing.

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(If you are in the minority of guitarists who loves to sing and are good at that too, know
that you have all my envy.)

Hey, my own voice is horrible6 so I understand where you are coming from.

And my suggestion here is... do it anyway. Close yourself in your room, make sure
nobody’s in the house and try to sing with your guitar anyway.

Even if your voice squawks like mine, or your intonation is completely off.

Because here’s the secret: even if you do this and never sing in pitch, your brain will
still ”feel” the connection with your guitar, and you will be able to improvise better.

Just give it a try. Do it for a few minutes a day, for the next few days.

By next week you will be MUCH better at creating melodies and catchy licks on your
guitar... even if you do only this.

Now, I realize how hard it is to follow the instructions above without seeing it done first.

But don’t worry, I got you covered! WATCH THIS VIDEO so you can see how this looks
in practice:

musictheoryforguitar.com/Best-Ear-Training-Exercise-For-Guitar-Players.html

6
I know my voice could be better if I did my vocal routines every day... but that’s the thing, I’d rather
play guitar :-)

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TIP 13 The Drop From 1

This is another simple move that seems so obvious once you know it... but somehow I
hear only pros playing it.

1. Play the root the pentatonic on the first string with your index finger. Only you’re
not going to use the tip of your index finger like you would normally do. Instead
you make a mini-barre with the index finger so that the tip of your finger lies on the
G string.

2. Then”roll” your index finger and with the tip of your finger play the third note of
the pentatonic on the G string.

3. If you want, you can add a Quarter Bend On 3 (see Tip 10.)

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This is called the Drop From 1... or to be more precise this is the most common form of
the Drop From 1.

The basic idea is to play the root of the scale somewhat high and then jump to a note
much lower. The root is a solid note that will always sound good when you play it high.

Most people play the root hight and jump down to the 3rd. But you can jump down to
any note.

For instance you could Drop From 1 and land on the 4th note of the scale:

... and then maybe bend this note up to the 5th note of the scale.

See how to do the Drop From 1 and some example phrases on the video example page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 13

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TIP 14 Double Stop Bends

You’ve definitely heard double stop bends... now it’s time to learn how to do them :-)

In case there’s any doubt, a ”double stop” simply means to play two notes together. This
tends to be more exciting when you use some distortion, thought double stops played-
with a clean sound are great too!

A double stop bend is when you:

1. Play two notes at the same time,

2. Bend one of them, while keeping the other ringing.

There are several places where you can do that. Here I’ll show you two popular options.
In both diagrams below, you will bend the orange note up a whole step, and you will
leave the green note unbent.

Let’s see our first example: use your index finger to play the green note, and use your
middle and ring finger together to bend the orange note.

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In this first example, you are bending the 4th note of the key (the D note if we are in A)
up a whole step (that is, up to E). At the same time, you are also playing an E note.

So what happens is that when you are done with the bend, both strings will play the E
note.

In music, when we play the same note on two strings (or two different instruments) we
call that ”unison”, and that’s why this trick is also commonly called a ”unison bend”.

The trick to make the unison bend sound good is to not bend too fast, so that the distortion
”breaks” in a musical way (see video below).

Let’s see our second example:

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

Like in the previous example, we are bending the 4th note of the key (the orange note)
up a whole step. But this time we will use our pinkie finger to fret the 7th note of the key
(the green note). This note will stay unbent.

These are not the only possible ways to do a double stop bend, and it would be worth
your time to explore other positions where you can do this.

See how to do Double Stop Bends and some example phrases on the video example page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 14

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TIP 15 Slide And Double Stop

A double stop is when we play two notes together. But that does not mean that we have
to pick them at the same time.

Confused? Try this:

 
8 let ring

 7 9
8

1. Use your ring finger to play the orange notes on the G string,

2. Slide from the lowest note to the higher one on the G string,

3. While the note on the G string keeps ringing, play the green note on the B string
using your index finger.

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

Now the two notes are sounding together — and if you use distortion you are getting that
glorious ’broken’ sound that is so typical of electric guitar.

See how to do the Slide And Double Stop and some example phrases on the video exam-
ple page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 15

Oh, and remember: you can always play one note, let it ring and then play another note
in the pentatonic. You don’t have to pick them at the same time.

And since we are here: yes ANY two notes in the pentatonic are ’legit’ double stops.

Some combinations are going to sound harsher than others but none of them are ”wrong”.
It depends on how much dissonance you want in that moment in your solo!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

TIP 16 Double Stop And Quarter Bend

Every time I play this on stage, I get other guitar players asking me ”what was that?” And
I gladly explain. This is not a secret, it sounds great, and it’s so simple to play!

Basically, you do a double stop with the two notes here (you recognize the scale pattern):

... and then Quarter Bend the orange note only (Tip 10). Mind you, do not bend it a full
step! Just a quarter bend will do!

I like to follow that with a descending scale and a Down Slide on 4 (Tip 11), this way:



 12 



8
8 Quarter bend
12
 13
14 12
14 12
15 12

See how to do the Double Stop And Quarter Bend on the video example page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 16

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

TIP 17 Combine All Of The Above!

All the ”moves” and tips that we have seen above work great by themselves.

But, as we said at the very beginning of this eBook, their real power lies in combinations.

THIS is the core point of this eBook... so I put it in a Tip all by itself!

So how do we start?

For instance, you can see a few examples of combinations on the video example page:
musictheoryforguitar.com/pentatonic-tips-video-examples-7hof3dp.html - Tip 17

But I do not recommend you blindly copy what I’m doing here. By all means, do take
inspiration from there, but don’t try to redo everything note-by-note.

Instead you want to learn to do your own combinations

Here’s how to do it:

1. Pick TWO Tips from this eBook,

2. Play them together. This may mean one of these two things:

(a) For some tips, it means play the idea of one Tip, followed by the idea of another
Tip. For instance, you can play a Double Stop Bend (Tip 14) followed by a Drop
From 1 (Tip 13)

(b) For some other tips, it means playing both tips at the same time. For instance
you can play a Downward Slide On 4 (Tip 11) while you pay attention to the
accents you are creating with your Dynamics (Tip 5).

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

3. Challenge yourself to come up with at least 5 different ways to combine the Tips
you have chosen. If you feel motivated, make it 50! ;-)

4. Pick another two Tips, and do it again!

5. When that becomes easy, try picking THREE Tips.

This kind of practice is supposed to be FUN, so don’t worry about mistakes — just ”fool
around” with this idea, be playful, and see if you can come up with something new.

You will see improvement in your playing very soon.

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

TIP 18 Where Do You Go From Here?

Well, hate to be Captain Obvious, but where do you go from here depends on what you
want to learn next!

But since you downloaded and (hopefully) read this eBook, I think I can assume that you
are interested about Lead Guitar and about playing better solos.

The pentatonic scale Tips that we have seen here are great fun and will make you a better
guitar player... but at the same time, your journey has just started.

There’s much more to lead guitar than the pentatonic scale.

And don’t get me wrong, the pentatonic scale is great, but it’s only ONE sound in a vast
palette of sounds that are available to us musicians. There are many more scales and
modes that we guitar players can tap into.

Now, I know that the mention of ”scales and modes” can be scary! You may be thinking
that scales and modes are too hard, that it takes a lifetime to learn them, or that they
(gasp!) can destroy you creativity.

Nothing would be further from the truth, of course.

We learn the modes because they help us to create more and better music. Would they
help you too?

Well... let’s see. Try answering these questions:

1. Do you often wonder ”what can I play on this chord progression?”

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

2. Do you ’get stuck’ in one scale position and are not able to play on the rest of the
fretboard?

3. Does your music sound ”all the same”, because you are using always the same 2-3
scales? (Or maybe you are using only one!)

If you answered ”YES” to any of the above, then I recommend my course Master of the
Modes:
http://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/scalesandmodesguitarlessons.html

Master Of The Modes is the course you want if:

• You want to focus on lead guitar.

• You want to completely master the guitar

fretboard.

• You want be able to improvise over ANY

backing track or chord progression.

It’s a course for both beginner and advanced

players.

”But does it really work?”

Fair question! Well, OF COURSE since I wrote it, I would tell you that it works. (Duh!)

So do not take my word for it! Instead read what my students say about it:

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

”My favorite thing about ”It was very impressive ”Master of the Modes
the Master of the Modes to learn about the devel- gives you the key to
is not just the amount of oping of the modes and understanding music.
amazing tips and tricks to get a vast overview Moving across the fret-
that I can use in my song- to an overall context. board is a breeze, and I
writing. The thing that I This quick and effective finally feel that I know
love the most is the way course has a perfect di- what I am doing when I
that Tommaso had applied dactic composition, which play. Now I have the tools
it to the guitar, in a way is a vital advantage in to express my emotions
that makes it easy for me comparison with other in songs. This is priceless
to learn and use.” courses” to me.”
(Darryl Powis) (Rudolf Dinges) (Alberto Milone)

To take the next step in your guitar journey, just click on this link:

http://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/scalesandmodesguitarlessons.html

I’ll see you on the other side! Tommaso Zillio of MusicTheoryForGuitar.com signing off
and until next time... ENJOY!

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

Other Courses Available:

Complete Chord Mastery

Complete Chord Mastery is the course you
want to take if:

• Your focus is on rhythm guitar.

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• You are interested in songwriting and

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If you’re like most guitar players, you might still
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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

Scales For Blues Guitar

Scales for Blues Guitar is the course you want
to take if you want to focus on pentatonic Blues
and Classic Rock leads.

• You hear great Blues players creating solos

that sound amazing but have no idea how
to do it by yourself?

• Do you struggle in playing the Blues in

all keys and over all the fretboard (as op-
posed in just one basic position)?

• Are you thinking too much about ”what

to play next”? Wouldn’t you rather than
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If you have answered ”yes” to any of the questions above, then you need to learn how
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Here’s how to finally master all the scales for Blues guitar. Get rid of your frustration and
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If you need help on topics that are not covered in the courses, or you need special feed-
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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

About the Author

Tommaso Zillio is a recording artist, composer,
session guitarist, guitar trainer and instructional
author.

His expertise as a teacher is on training guitar

players on how to use music theory to create their
own style and express themselves. His main fo-
cus is on helping guitar players thinking both in-
side and outside the box and to eliminate any-
thing that can restrict their free expression on the
instrument.

Tommaso holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics

from the International School of Advanced Stud-
ies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste, Italy. He has been a
Postdoctoral Fellow with the Smithsonian and to
date he has published a dozen peer-reviewed re-
search articles on topics ranging from Physics to
Ecology.

Tommaso’s influences are very varied, expressing

the love of music that transcends genera and instruments. Some of his favorite musicians
are: Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Joe Satriani, Andy Timmons, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel
Jarre, Nightwish, Astor Piazzolla, John Williams, Gustav Holst, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Tommaso is a graduate of Tom Hess’s Music Careers Mentoring Program and is a charter
member of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. He earned the esteemed ”Elite Master
Guitar Teacher” title given to less than 10 guitar teachers world wide to date.

For more info about Tommaso, or to contact him, go to:

https://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/abouttommasozillio.html.

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 18 Tips To Make Your Pentatonic Solos Sound Professional

This eBook is under international copyright protection. It cannot be copied, sold, rented,
loaned, or distributed in any way whatsoever, without written consent of Guitar Mastery
Solutions, Inc.

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