How to practise a guitar solo phrase by phrase

The usual way to learn a solo is to start at the beginning and play until it falls apart, then start again. This has two problems. The opening gets practised many times more than the ending, and every attempt rehearses the same collapse at the same point.

Splitting the solo into named sections fixes both. Each phrase gets the attention it actually needs, at its own tempo, and the hard bar in the middle stops being something you only ever reach when you are already tired.

The method

1. 01

   Cut the solo at its phrase joints

   Listen once and note where the player breathes. Those gaps are the seams. Mark A and B around the first phrase and press S to save it, then do the same for each one. Most solos come apart into four to eight pieces.

2. 02

   Find the fastest clean tempo for each

   Take one section and lower the speed until you can play it correctly, not comfortably. That number will be different for every phrase, which is the whole point of saving them separately.

3. 03

   Set a lead-in and a rest

   A lead-in of about a quarter of a second stops the first note being clipped by the seek. A rest of a second gives your hand time to return to the starting position, so you are not always catching up.

4. 04

   Turn on the speed ramp and play

   Add 0.02× per pass with a ceiling of 1×. The loop gets imperceptibly faster each time round, and your hands follow without being told. Twenty passes takes you from 0.6× to full tempo.

5. 05

   Rejoin the phrases

   Once two neighbouring sections are solid, set a new loop that spans both. The joins are where solos fall apart, and they need their own practice.

Why each phrase needs its own tempo

Difficulty is not evenly spread through a solo. There is usually one run that is three times harder than everything around it. Practising the whole solo at the speed that run requires means the easy phrases get drilled at a tempo that teaches you nothing, and practising at the speed the easy phrases want means the hard run never gets clean.

Because a saved section keeps the speed you were using, you can put the fast run at 0.5× and the sustained bends at 0.95× and switch between them with the number keys. Pressing 1 through 9 loads both the range and the tempo.

Practising the joins

Sections that are individually perfect will still fall apart where they meet, because the transition is its own piece of technique — a position shift, a change of picking direction, a breath you did not know you were taking.

Once two neighbours are solid, set a loop that starts near the end of the first and ends near the start of the second, so the join sits in the middle. Two bars is usually enough. Save it as its own section with a name like join 2–3. It is the same trick a rehearsing ensemble uses when the conductor calls out a bar number rather than the top.

A session that runs itself

With a lead-in, a rest, a pass limit and a speed ramp all set, a section becomes a complete drill: it starts where you want, gives you room to reset, gets gradually faster and stops on its own. You can leave your hands on the instrument for the whole thing. Turning on keep the screen awake in the settings stops the display dimming halfway through.

Questions people ask

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