Tip: Common Melodic Patterns for Soloing

Darrin Koltow Blog How to Play Guitar Solos

Here are two pretty common patterns to solo with. There are some more complicated things we can build with these patterns but let’s start with the basics for now. We can call these patterns 1 2 3 1 and 1 3 2 1. These refer to the degrees of the major scale. F is 1, G is 2 and so on.

Here are the patterns at the fifth fret, F major:

|------------------|-----------------|
|o-----------------|-----------------|
|------------------|-----5-----5-7---|
|----5-7---5-7-8-5-|-7-8---7-8-----8-|
|o-8-----8---------|-----------------|
|------------------|-----------------|

|-----------------|----------------|
|-----5-----5-6---|-5-6-8-5-6------|
|-5-7---5-7-----7-|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|

And here’s the 1 3 2 1 pattern:

|------------------|-----------------|
|o-----------------|-----------------|
|------------------|---5-------7-5---|
|----7-5---5-8-7-5-|-7---8-7-8-----8-|
|o-8-----8---------|-----------------|
|------------------|-----------------|

|-----------------|----------------|
|---5-------6-5---|-5-8-6-5-6------|
|-5---7-5-7-----7-|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|
|-----------------|----------------|

Next time we’ll look at some ways to practice these patterns.

Thanks for reading.

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News – November 15, 2006 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.