How to Solo over Chord Progressions

Last Updated: September 15, 2021 References Approved

If you've already mastered how to play guitar chords, you may be ready to learn how to play a solo that complements those chords. In other words, you may be ready for playing a solo over a chord progression. But what notes should you choose when playing your solo over chords? You can determine these notes based on the key of the song, off the chords themselves, or by using relative minor pentatonic scale notes.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Using the Key to Solo

1
Identify the key of your song. The most common way of checking the key signature of the song you are in is by observing the notation in the clef at the beginning of your music. This will either have a number of sharps (#), flats (♭), or nothing at all. This will help you identify the key.
- When there are no flats or sharps in the starting clef of your song, your song is in C major. The relative minor of C major is A.
- Major keys: G (one sharp), D (two sharps), A (three), E (four), B (five), F# (six), C# (seven), C♭ (seven flats), G♭ (six flats), D♭ (five), A♭ (four), E♭ (three), B♭ (two), F♭ (one).
- Minor keys: E (one sharp), B (two sharps), F# (three), C# (four), G# (five), D# (six), E♭ (six flats), B♭ (five flats), F (four), C (three), G (two), D (one).^{[1]
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EXPERT TIP

Michael Papenburg
Professional Guitarist
Michael Papenburg is a Professional Guitarist based in the San Francisco Bay Area with over 35 years of teaching and performing experience. He specializes in rock, alternative, slide guitar, blues, funk, country, and folk. Michael has played with Bay Area local artists including Matadore, The Jerry Hannan Band, Matt Nathanson, Brittany Shane, and Orange. Michael currently plays lead guitar for Petty Theft, a tribute to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Michael Papenburg
Professional Guitarist

If you want to solo over a chord progression, you have to have an understanding of how music is organized. Chords are generally part of a key center. In other words, all of the chord progressions are built on the notes of the major scale. A typical progression would be what's called a 1-4-5 progression—it would be the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale. In the key of C, for instance, the 1-4-5 progression would be C major chord, F major chord, and G major chord, so you would use those notes to solo. However, you could also use the relative minor, which in the case of C major would be A minor.
2
Locate key changes throughout the song. Some songs change key at various points throughout the song. You'll need to account for these key changes while soloing by key.^{[2]
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Research source} Scan each line of your music and look for:
- A double bar line. This could be located toward the beginning, middle, or end of any line of music in your song.
- Natural signs (♮). These are like an eraser that deletes the sharps or flats in your key previously. Each natural sign removes one sharp or flat.
- New accidentals. "Accidental" is the term used to describe any key change (#, ♭, ♮).^{[3]
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  Research source} These will indicate your new key.
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3
Choose a complementary key. Playing your solo in the same key as your song is the simplest way of ensuring you rock your solo in a complementary key. However, you could also play in keys that are harmonic to the key of your song.^{[4]
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- Keys sharing the same number of sharps or flats, or keys different by only a single sharp or flat on the Circle of Fifths, generally share many tones, creating harmony.
4
Play the notes of your solo in the complementary key. There are many different ways you can execute this. You can play the key in scales, you can break up chords and solo those notes, or you could even transition between the notes of harmonic keys, like the ones surrounding the key you're playing in on the Circle of Fifths.^{[5]
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- If you hit a note that's dissonant, don't panic. Hold the note for a moment, and then scale up or down with whole or half steps until the dissonance resolves. This way, your dissonant note will seem intentional.
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Practice soloing frequently. Soloing is a difficult skill that is often complicated by other factors, like nerves. The more you practice, the easier it will be for you to fall into the motions you've practiced time and again.^{[6]
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Research source} There are many places you might play with your band to gain experience, including:
- Community talent shows
- Local venues
- On the street, busking
- School events and talent shows

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Basing Your Solo off Chords

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Break your song into chords. You'll be able to come up with more interesting and varied notes for your solo if you base your solo off chords. Chords change much more frequently throughout a song than keys, meaning your chord based solo will likely have a greater variety of notes than a key based one.^{[7]
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- You may want to go through your song and write the chords for each bar of music if this information isn't already there.
2
Solo by soloing according to the chord. Now that your chords are written out, you can play scales or arpeggios in the key of those chords to create a complementary sounding solo. When the chord changes, change the scale or arpeggio you are playing to match the key of the new chord.^{[8]
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- Keys with the same number accidentals or keys different by only a single accidental on the Circle of Fifths are generally harmonious.^{[9]
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Emphasize the root note of the chord in your solo. You can think of the root of a chord as its most central tone. By playing the root of the chord throughout your solo, weaving it into scales, arpeggios, and more, your solo will sound more tonally centered and harmonic.^{[10]
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- The letter name of each chord generally indicates its root. For example, a Gmaj7 chord has a root of G, an F#min chord has the root of F#.^{[11]
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Voice lead into the root of your next chord. Voice leading is a common soloing technique. It involves playing a note (or notes) either a half or whole step away from the root of the next chord, before that next chord is played.
- The notes surrounding the root of your next chord will resolve to that root. When you play the next chord, this technique creates a natural kind of transition between chords.^{[12]
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Soloing with Relative Minor Pentatonic Scales

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Determine the chords of your song. Go through the music for your song and, bar by bar of music, write out the chord progressions that will be used throughout the song. From these chords, you're going to find the relative minor pentatonic of each one.
- The relative minor pentatonic scale of each chord will only contain notes already in the chord. This means its notes will sound pleasing in your solo.
- You may want to leave some space between chords when you write them out. This way you can write the relative minor pentatonic beside the root chord.
- A pentatonic scale is a scale is limited to five notes, with each note of the scale usually being a strong harmonic complement to the chord off which it's based.^{[13]
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Find the relative minor of major chords, if necessary. The general rule when soloing with a pentatonic scale is to use the relative minor pentatonic scale, which will nearly always sound good with the original chord. The relative minor of any major scale is three half-tones below the root note.
- On a guitar, three half-steps will be represented by three frets on the neck of your guitar, with each fret standing for a half step.^{[14]
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- For example, if the root of a major chord is C, the relative minor would be A. For an F major chord, D would be its relative minor.^{[15]
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Identify the notes of your pentatonic scale. Traditional western scales have eight notes, but your pentatonic scale(s) will only have five. To transform your relative minor scale into a relative minor pentatonic, you should remove the second and sixth tones from your relative minor scale.^{[16]
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Benward, Bruce and Saker, Marilyn N. <i>Music: In Theory and Practice</i>, seventh edition, vol. I, p. 37. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. Print.} For example:
- The relative minor of C major is A. To form a pentatonic scale in A minor, remove the second and sixth intervals from the root. This yields a pentatonic scale of: A, C, D, E, G.
- The relative minor of F major is D. D minor's pentatonic scale, therefore, would be: D, F, G, A, C.
- If you want to create a pentatonic from a major scale, you can do this by removing the fourth and seventh tone from the scale.^{[17]
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Solo with notes in your relative minor pentatonic scale(s). Using the notes you've identified for the relative pentatonic minor scales of your chords, play your solo. Since the relative minor pentatonic scales only use notes already part of the original chords, the solo notes you play will complement the chords.^{[18]
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Community Q&A

Question

What notes are played while accompanying a song?

Daniel Gonçalves

Community Answer

First, you need to figure out the musical key of your song. If you discover your song is in C major, for example, then you will be able to play the following notes over it: C D E F G A or B.
Question

When playing the minor pentatonic scale over chords to play my solo, which string do I start on?

Daniel Gonçalves

Community Answer

The question here is: which of the five notes composing the scale should I start on? A safe bet is always the root (1st), the third or the fifth. For example, if you are in A minor pentatonic, start with the 6th string 5th fret, or maybe the 4th string 7th fret.