How To Play Fast Guitar Scales That Sound Like Expressive Music Rather Than Just A Blur Of Notes

Bringing scale patterns to life through fast and expressive guitar solos sounds awesome! This is easier than you think as long as you don’t make the common mistake of neglecting guitar phrasing.

This means paying attention not just to speed, but to HOW you play the notes.

Improving your phrasing is one of the biggest keys to transforming robotic scale patterns into actual music. Playing fast guitar solos that sound great using excellent phrasing is an art all to its own (and cannot be covered entirely in one article). However, these tips help you get started down the right path:

Add Voice-Like Musical Expression To Your Guitar Scales Using Vibrato

Vibrato technique is critical for giving your guitar playing the sound of a singer’s voice. This adds the human element to your solos so they connect with people on a more emotional level. This technique takes time to master but pays off big when you know how to use it fluidly in your solos.

While learning guitar scales, don’t simply play the notes in total isolation from other areas of your guitar playing. Integrate them together using vibrato (and other techniques).

Here are some great ways to improve both your scales and vibrato at the same time:

While practicing a scale, add vibrato to every note like in the tab below:

Practice this slowly, making sure your vibrato is controlled and in-tune as shown in this video:

Another cool way to make your guitar scales more musical is to play through the scale at a fast speed, then add vibrato to the very last note. Repeat this same process by adding vibrato to random notes and/or adding it to more and more notes until it’s used on the whole scale.

Add Speed And Intensity To Phrases With Ease Using Tremolo Picking

Repetition is a great tool for making any guitar scale more interesting. You add repetition and intensity to a scale when you tremolo pick each note as seen in the tab below:

To make this even more musical, sequence the scale by grouping notes in 3’s, 5’s or 7’s. For example: Sequences of 3 = E – F – G – F – G – A – G – A – B etc.

Give Guitar Scales A Unique Legato Sound Using Slides

Using legato is a cool way to play fast guitar scales that sound really smooth and connected. Adding other guitar techniques makes your scales more interesting and expressive.

For example: Instead of simply playing the scale up and down in a bland fashion, use a slide to slide into the first note before continuing the rest of the scale.

This video shows you a really cool and creative way to accent single notes using a unique slide:

Use the slide in the video (at 3:02) to think of creative improvisations with any scale by:

Choosing 5 notes of a guitar scale to solo with.

  1. Sliding into the first note of your phrase.

  2. Playing a short lick.

  3. Creating a variation of that lick (using the slide again).

  4. Repeating this process for 15 times.

This helps you focus on making a scale sound musical and challenges you to be as creative as possible to think of new variations with limited note choices.

Squeeze More Expression Out Of The Same Notes Using Repetition

Another way to use repetition creatively to make fast guitar scales sound cool is by repeating several notes before moving to the next notes in the pattern.

For example: Here is an ascending E minor guitar lick:

Now, here is that same lick, only it uses repetition to instantly make the lick sound much more interesting:

The powerful thing about repetition is that you get tons of expressive effect without using any new notes. As you solo using scale patterns, keep this in mind and use repetition to make your phrases more interesting and give yourself time to think of the phrase you want to play next.

Now you’ve learned some great ways to turn regular guitar scales into tools for musical expression. This is a big piece of the puzzle for playing killer guitar solos, but there is much more to learn.

Find out how to turn any guitar solo into a musically expressive masterpiece using the information in this free lead guitar resource.