solos (scales)

Are you combining the pentatonic scales from the different positions on the fretboard? Your options are almost limitless.

Sometimes I feel the same way with pentatonic scales, because there are so few notes compared to other "full" scales. If you're into the blues, try adding the blue note, which is the b5 note of the scale- this makes the blues scale (the blue note in A blues is Eb).
I think the blue note is a cool note to throw in to give the minor pentatonic some "feeling" by bending into the note.
What I sometimes do is try to play random notes within the scale- every once in a while I come up with (what I think is) a cool riff. I hope this helps.

Have you really got the patterns down along with which notes each is in the scale? Once you have all the pentatonic patterns down, you should pretty much be able to relate any other scale into it using degrees.

Probably not the simplest way to understand the guitar, but since I learned pentatonics first, and have the patterns down really solid, I can relate other notes into those positions, so if I need to grab a major 3rd but I'm soloing using a minor pentatonic scale, since I know where all the minor 3rds are, by proxy I know where all major 3rds are too.

Unfortunately, due to the rather large delay between when I learned the pentatonic scales and when I wanted to start incorporating other sounds, I find myself leaning on the pentatonic shapes a lot. In retrospective, I should have learned how the pentatonic fit into the big picture instead of learning it AS the big picture. :wink:

One of the things that most less accomplished guitarists have the hardest time learning is that a solo doesn't have to be complex to be really really good.

Listen to someone like B.B. King. The guy is regarded as guitar god. But really listen to what he does. None of it is complicated playing, but it is ageless because it's musically perfect and beautiful because it's elegantly simple.

It is really really HARD to play a great solo using only a few notes. But it can be done, and you'll really grow as a musician figuring out how to do it. Push yourself to do it. The key is to use the other musical elements you can control such as tempo, rythym, timbre and volume to express yourself.

Very true. When I was in college, I studied improvisation with bassist Paul Zibbits... at lesson 1, he had me solo using only F notes (I could play any rhythm, and F in any octave, but no other ntoes). You can make it interesting with just a few notes, but the key - as with any good solo - is to know what the result will sound like BEFORE you play it.