Why Your Solos Sound Boring (And How to Fix It in 5 Minutes)
If your solos sound more like a practice exercise than music, this one is for you.
It is a quick five minute challenge, and it is also something you should start focusing on any time you play over a backing track.
Most folks approach a backing track by reading whatever key the YouTube title says it is in, then running through that scale without taking into consideration what chords are being played underneath.
The result is a non-cohesive, step-by-step sort of solo instead of something that is following the chords.
I guarantee you’ve heard this in your own playing.. Every note is technically correct, nothing particularly “clashes”, but the whole thing sounds like you’re practicing.
That is a targeting problem, and it is completely fixable in a week, so let me show you how.
“In key” is not enough
Most players believe that if the track is in A, and I play the A scale, everything I play is right.
That is true in the narrow sense; nothing you play will be wrong, but being in key only guarantees you avoid wrong notes. It does nothing to make any particular note sound intentional.
A chord is three notes: the root, the third and the fifth. When those three notes are ringing underneath you, they are the notes the listener’s ear is already locked onto.
If you play one of them, your note fuses with the chord. If you play one of the other four notes in the scale, you are passing through, which is fine in the middle of a phrase and weak at the start or the end of one.
Scales tell you which notes are available, chords tell you which ones matter right now.
Example
For this example we are going to keep it simple and use A G, a D, and an A.
Get a backing track going with those three chords cycling through and give each chord a full bar so you have time to think. You can loop it on your phone, use a looper pedal, or pull a backing track off our channel.
And that’s is all the setup you need. Now, instead of reaching for a scale, we are going to look at those three chords and pull notes directly out of them.
We are going to do it in three passes, and each pass gets one job.
Pass one: play only the root notes
When each chord passes through on the backing track, the very first thing we are going to do is play just the root notes of those chords.
G over the G. D over the D. A over the A.
That is the entire exercise for this pass, and it is going to feel almost insultingly simple for about thirty seconds. Then it gets interesting because you have to find the change before it arrives.
Start in one spot, then try to navigate further up the neck each time. Then find the next octave of each root and play the progression again up there. Then find another octave and do it again.
By the time you have run the roots in three octaves, you know where the chord changes live on the whole neck.
Common mistake on this pass: landing on the root after the chord has already changed. You want to arrive on the beat the chord arrives, which means your hand has to be moving during the bar before. If you are late, slow the track down.
Pass two: Target the thirds
Now let’s focus on the third of each chord.
- For G, that is B
- For D, that is F#
- For A, that is C#
It’s the same drill here. When the chord comes around, land on its third. B, F#, C#. Then move to a different spot on the neck and do it again.
The third is the most valuable note in this whole exercise. We all know the root tells you which chord you are on while the third tells you whether that chord is happy or sad. It is the only note in the triad that carries the major or minor quality, which is why a power chord, with just a root and a fifth, sounds neither.
So when you land on a third, you are landing on the note that most clearly says “I am playing over this chord.” It is the strongest sounding target in the triad.
If you cannot find the thirds quickly yet, here is the shortcut: From the root, count up two whole steps in the scale. One, two, three. That is four frets up on the same string, or the same shape you already use in every major chord you play.
Pass three: target the fifths
Finally we are going to target the fifth of each chord.
- For G, that is D
- For D, that is A
- For A, that is E
The fifth is the safest note of the three because it is stable and it will never sound wrong. That also makes it the least interesting on its own, which is why it works best as a place to rest at the end of a phrase.
Once you have done that a handful of times in a couple of different locations on the neck, you will start to see and hear that each one of those notes is playing really nicely over the chord that it is assigned to.
What this does for your playing
Two things come out of this exercise. First is obvious once you hear it. Those notes sound right because they came out of the chord and you are not guessing anymore.
The second one is doing this tells you what the progression is.
G, D and A over a backing track like this is not an A major progression, it is an A Mixolydian progression.
And here’s why.. If this were A major, the G would have to be a G#, because A major has three sharps: F#, C# and G# but the track has a G natural in it. Take A major and flatten the seventh, and that is A Mixolydian; the chords told you the mode.
Once you are targeting chord tones, the chords start handing you information about the key that you would otherwise have to be told.
How to practice this
Do not try to run all three passes in one sitting and call it done. I recommend spreading it out:
- Day one: roots only, in three octaves
- Day two: roots again, then thirds in one position
- Day three: thirds in three positions
- Day four: fifths, same way
- Day five: mix them. Start a phrase on a root, end it on a third
- Day six: play freely, but force yourself to start and end every phrase on a chord tone
- Day seven: play freely with no rules and hear what stuck
How to go further
Once this clicks on a three chord progression, you can take it somewhere harder.
- Try it on a progression that changes key partway through.
- Try it on a minor progression, where the third you are targeting is a flat third.
- Try it on a song you already know, and find out which notes of your existing solo were landing on chord tones and which ones you were getting away with.
You can also flip the exercise around so instead of finding the chord tones inside your scale shape, find the chord shape first, and then pull the notes out of it. That is the CAGED approach, and it gets you to the same place from the other direction.
Mistakes I see
Treating it as a lick
You’re learning where three notes live under each chord, not learning a phrase.
Only doing it in one position
The value is in seeing the same chord tone in three different octaves. If you always stay in the 5th fret box, you’ve learned almost nothing.
Landing on the chord tone late
If you arrive a beat after the chord does, the ear hears a mistake being corrected. Try to slow the track down until you’re arriving on time.
Playing too many notes
During these passes, one note per chord is plenty.
Skipping straight to the fifths (the easy ones)
The thirds are going to feel really awkward at first, but that’s where your hard work will pay off most.
A final note
Now whenever you are playing over backing tracks, you’ve got yourself a road map for your target chord tones.
There’s no more guessing which note you should start or end a phrase on; it should be one of those notes over that chord.
