The FIRST STEP in Learning to Play Authentic Sounding Solos

Ever run the pentatonic scale perfectly and still wonder why your solo doesn’t sound like a song? We shine a light on the missing link: groove and phrasing. Starting with a deep soul A minor backing track, we walk through how to hear the downbeat, count eighth notes, and turn simple movements in one position into musical sentences that sit inside the track rather than float over it.

We focus on the essentials that instantly change your sound: locking into the eighth-note feel, crafting phrases that begin and end clearly, and embracing silence to give ideas shape. You’ll learn why varying phrase length breaks “square” playing, how repetition builds hooks, and how starting on upbeats adds lift and forward motion. Instead of chasing speed or new positions, we show how practicing with intention—one goal per session—creates real progress and confidence.

By the end, A minor pentatonic becomes a palette for storytelling, not just a pattern to run. You’ll know how to pick a comfortable tempo, listen while you play, and avoid the common trap of scale soup. Ready to sound more authentic and musical? Hit play, subscribe for more practical guitar lessons, and share your biggest phrasing breakthrough in a review or comment.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Chapters

• 1:10 Welcome & Goal Setting
• 1:36 Picking The Right Key And Track
• 3:08 Locking Into The Groove
• 4:20 Why Eighth Notes Matter
• 6:49 Phrasing With Starts And Stops
• 8:51 Varying Phrase Lengths
• 9:36 Repetition And Motifs
• 10:34 Starting On Upbeats
• 11:22 Practice With Intention
• 13:17 What To Ignore For Now
• 13:29 Closing & Academy Invite

Transcript

Steve: 0:35

Hey Steve Stine here from Guitar Zoom Academy. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about the basics that you need to get started in learning how to actually improvise to solo. Now, this it assumes that you've already done some work on, you know, maybe a pentatonic scale or something like that, but you're having problems actually making it sound musical. So I'm going to give you a couple of things that I think about when I try and teach this stuff to people. The first thing is make sure that you're choosing the right scale for the key that you're trying to solo over. For instance, what we're going to do today, I found a track on YouTube by it's looks like Jumanji backing tracks. It's called Deep Soul Groove Backing Track in A minor. Okay. So the first step is to find some sort of backing track or whatever it is that you want to use that kind of fits what you're studying, the key that you're you're studying, you know, a tempo that feels comfortable for you, all of those sorts of things. So we're going to start with real basic things here that you can use to build up from simply knowing how to play a scale. Maybe you just practice it up and down, that sort of thing. So the first thing I tell people, once we've established the key, now we know this is an A minor. So that would mean we'd need to know something about the A minor pentatonic, for instance, on our on our guitar. So I'm going to go to this first position.

unknown: 2:03

Okay.

Steve: 2:04

And that's all I'm going to use for now because my focus right now isn't the fretboard. That's a great focus to have. That's a great, you know, element to study. But right now, that's not my focus. Right now, what I want to do is I want to start learning how to make some sort of musical connection to what I'm listening to. So let's start off by just listening to this a little bit to get a feel for what this is. So the first thing you do, in my opinion, is you figure out where the groove is, where's the downbeat? Where's the quarter note? Okay. So if we listen to this, I start thinking one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Now, the quarter note is perfect. I can go to my guitar and use that quarter note. But here's the deal the the connection to the music, in my opinion, really lies in the eighth note, which is two per click instead of one per click. So what I really want to think about is this one two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one. So that's our eighth note. So I'm thinking one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one. So I need to make sure that I am comfortable. Now, again, the tempo is going to make a difference on this. If this song was really fast, the eighth notes would be really fast. This is why I'm choosing something that's fairly slow, intentionally. So when I get in here, what I want to make sure is that I can connect to that eighth note groove right here comfortably. I'm able to pick, move my fingers in this position, all of these sorts of things. I can do this and make it sound confident, smooth, comfortable, right? If I'm really struggling with trying to play this, maybe I don't have it memorized well enough, or you know, I'm not very good at being able to pick through it or whatever it might be. These are things that I need to work on. Obviously, those are red flags that should go off in my mind, going, okay, I need to study this more, or I need to practice this more. So I'm not asking for 16th notes at this point or anything really, really fast. I'm just saying eighth notes. So what you can do is just test this out by just practicing playing your scale. Is it pretty comfortable being able to play up and down? So the next thing we need to do then is with those eighth notes, we start dabbling or meandering inside here, looking for things to do. Now, we don't have to have any direction at this point. We'll we'll get there at some point in our playing. But right now, what we want to do is really just focus on the groove connecting to the rhythm of this track. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna choose various groups of notes to play. I could simply move up, I could move down, I could move back and forth. You know, anything that I can think of, and this is really important, is if you've never really done this sort of thing, it takes time to get used to all of the various shapes or motions that you can make on the guitar using these notes. Because sometimes we get into this frame of mind where we think we're supposed to use all the notes all the time or something like that. And that's not true. We can, you know, singers don't just sing scales up and down all the time. We can get in there and just take a couple of notes. We can repeat. Like there's lots of different things that we can do. So, this is the first and most crucial step to getting this is learning how to think about what we'll call phrasing, which is just grabbing a small or larger group of notes and trying to do something with it. And the goal to phrasing is at some point you have to stop playing to create a phrase. If you just play the whole time, there's never a phrase, it never ends. So the trick to this is learning how to either stop on a note or stop playing entirely and you're done. And then you come back in. And so the next step to this is as you get comfortable to with the movement of what we're talking about, playing a few notes, playing a lot of notes, phrasing, stopping, or pausing on a note, the next thing you start thinking about, and this is really important, is avoiding making the same um length of phrases. So you're not going. And you'll notice if you start listening to yourself play, you might notice you're you're doing that. So I just want you to be aware that you want to try and make different sized shapes as you're doing this. Okay, so let's let's take a look at this once. Let me bring this back a little bit. Here we go. All right. Now, as I'm thinking about these different sized, you know, sentences, if you will, that I'm saying on my guitar, it doesn't really matter where I start at this point, and it doesn't really matter where I end. I don't have to end on an A. You know, those are another conversation for another day, but I I am aware that, you know, what I'm most concerned with at this point is playing those eighth notes and making different sized phrases. That's what I'm thinking about. I can use repetition. No, I don't have to play one note every time. I could play, you know, the same note multiple times. I can create, you know, a repeating idea. Like there's lots of different things I can I can experience in practicing this. So that's the first step is just trying to get used to being being comfortable with making different size phrases, being comfortable with stopping and starting in different places. And that's the next thing I want to talk about. You don't always have to start on the beat number one, you know, one, two, three, four, one, or on the down beats, one, two, three, four. You could start on an what we call an upbeat or off beat, one and two. And you could start one, two, and three, and four. You could start on different beats, and you have to practice these sorts of things. Okay. So this is a really important, crucial, crucial first step to learning how to solo is to connect to the groove using eighth notes. Now we can move to sixteenth notes, you know, bending and vibrato and all these things I would love to talk to you about, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna talk about all that right now. I just want to keep this focused on one thing, which is when you hear a groove, you hear a backing track, I should say, you figure out is this a the good backing track for me? Does the tempo feel pretty comfortable? Is it in a key that I can work with, you know, A minor pentatonic or whatever? And again, maybe you know how to move things around, and that's great. I'm just saying, find something that's comfortable for you. Then you start exploring this eighth note realm instead of one, two, three. You're playing one and two and three and four, and you start trying to experience different sized phrases. Bum bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, two, bum, bum, bum, right? Whatever it is you want. And you start learning not just to play up and down, but you can move back and forth, side to side. And you have to spend time in this realm just getting used to thinking about that. So the last thing I'll say that's very important is when you are practicing, try to stay focused on what your intention is. Right? I always tell people practice with intention. Focus, practice, don't be distracted. And second thing is just practice with intention. What am I trying to work on for the next 15, 20, 30 minutes, whatever it is. If my focus is what we're talking about right now, I'm not worried about movement on the fretboard. I'm not worried about new positions, I'm not worried about other keys, I'm not worried about modes, right? And even at this point, I'm not worried about direction, like I need to go to a D or I need to go to a G or I need to go to an A. We're not even thinking about that. We're not even thinking about bending and vibrato and all these other things. Now, if they come natural to you, that's fine. But if it requires thought, then that needs to be another intention that you need to work on. I need to work on my bending. I need to work on my vibrato. But right now, your focus is simply trying to connect to the groove and start making different sized phrases, different sized sentences. Use repetition. Sometimes you don't use repetition. Sometimes it's a, you know, just a one-direction thing. It's it can be lots of different things, starting and stopping on different beats, not just a square, like I call a square, which is like you're just playing the same phrase over and over and over. Even the notes are changing, even though the notes are changing, you're playing that same phrase over and over and over. You need to become aware of that so you can start making different sized phrases that start and stop on different beats. All right. So if this makes sense, this is a great place for you to start learning how to make your soloing sound more authentic. Okay. And if you do have any questions or you've been struggling and you know you're you're really excited to continue on with your guitar journey, but you're just not getting where you want to go. Again, I'd like to remind you check out Guitar Zoom Academy. Okay. We'll schedule a discussion, no credit card involved. We're just going to have a discussion and tell you about the Academy, see if it's something that you're interested in, something that would fit your world. And if it is, we'll continue that discussion and see where it leads us. So anyway, take care, stay positive, and I'll talk to you soon, okay?