Play Your First Shred Solo

The beginner series ended with an eight-bar solo built from pentatonic shape 1 and a single bend. This is the same idea with the training wheels off: twelve bars in A minor at 100 BPM, over an Am, G, F, G loop with one chord per bar. It divides into three four-bar phrases, and each one leans on different lessons from this series. Phrase one sings. Phrase two runs. Phrase three sets off the fireworks.

Nothing in it is new. The bends come from lesson 3, the legato from lesson 2, the three-note-per-string pattern from lesson 6, the descending fours from lesson 9, the taps from lesson 10, the sweeps from lesson 11, and the habit of landing phrases on chord tones from lesson 7. A solo is vocabulary you already own, arranged with intent. That was true at the end of the beginner series and it is still true at 100 BPM.

Phrase one: the statement

Every good solo earns the fast parts with a melody first, so bars 1 through 4 are the singable bit. Bar 1, over Am: an eighth rest (breathe), then E, G, E on the B string (frets 5, 8, 5), then the lesson-3 move: fret 7 on the G string, a D, bent a full step up to E, settling on A at fret 7 on the D string with vibrato. Bar 2 repeats the motif over the G chord but leaves the D unbent and lands on G (fret 5, D string). Same question, different answer, which is exactly the phrasing game from lesson 7.

Bar 3 lifts the motif to the top strings over F: A, C, A (frets 5 and 8 on the high E), a G at fret 8 on the B, and a landing on F itself at fret 10 on the G string. Three bars, three landings, each one a chord tone of the bar it lives in. Bar 4 breaks the pattern with a rising eighth-note fill, G, A, C, D, E, G, ending on a held A at fret 10 on the B string. That held A is a hand-off: it points straight at the run that starts phrase two.

Practice plan: 70 BPM, ten minutes a day for a week. Before any metronome work, tune the bend the lesson-3 way: play fret 9 on the G string, memorize the E, then bend fret 7 until the two are identical. And sing the phrase away from the guitar. If you cannot sing it, you do not own it yet, and this is the one phrase of the three that must sound like singing.

Phrase two: the run

Bars 5 and 6 are one long gesture: an eighteen-note legato climb through the three-note-per-string A minor pattern from lesson 6, played as triplets. Pick only the first note on each string and let hammer-ons do the rest, which is lesson 2 doing its job at full strength. The climb starts at fret 5 on the low E string and tops out on the high C at fret 8 on the high E, held for two beats with vibrato. After eighteen notes of motion, that stillness is the loudest thing in the bar.

Bar 7 flips the rhythmic switch you drilled in lesson 4: triplets become sixteenths mid-solo. The notes are descending fours through pentatonic box 1 from lesson 9, starting at the top: four notes down, step back, four more, all the way to the A at fret 7 on the D string. Bar 8 closes with the unison bend from lesson 3: fret 8 on the B string (G) bent a full step until it matches the A ringing at fret 5 on the high E. Then a beat of silence, then a single quarter-note A as a pickup. The silence is written into the tab because you will not add it yourself under pressure; nobody does.

Practice plan: split the phrase at the bar line. Loop bars 5 and 6 with no metronome first, listening only for even hammer-on volume, then add the click. Loop bar 7 at half speed counting “one-ee-and-uh.” The genuinely hard part is the seam where triplets become sixteenths, so practice bars 6 into 7 as a two-bar unit until the gear change feels smug rather than lucky.

Phrase three: fireworks

Bars 9 through 12 are the payoff, and you have already practiced most of them. Bar 9 is lesson 10's first tapping lick, verbatim: tap fret 12 on the high E (E), pull off to 5 (A), hammer 8 (C), triplets over the Am chord. Bar 10 moves the whole tapping shape up for the G chord, exactly like the triad drill: tap 15 (G), index at 7 (B), ring at 10 (D). Bar 11 brings in the sweep motion from lesson 11 with one new shape, F major on the top three strings: F at fret 10 on the G string, A at fret 10 on the B, C at fret 8 on the high E, up and down each beat.

Bar 12 is the climax, three events in four beats. Beat 1: one A minor sweep up through A, C, E (frets 14, 13, 12, the lesson-11 shape). Beats 2 and 3: the money note, fret 15 on the high E, a G, bent a full step up to A and held. That bend reaches the root of the key at the top of the neck, which is why it feels like the whole solo was aiming at it. Beat 4: settle on E at fret 12 with vibrato while the loop turns back toward Am. Tune the bend against fret 17 before you trust it; a climax bend that lands flat undoes twelve bars of good work.

Practice plan: bars 9, 10 and the bar-12 sweep are drills you already run, so give your new minutes to the F sweep in bar 11 and to the bar-12 sequence as a unit, sweep into bend into vibrato, slow enough that the bend arrives in tune every single time.

Performing it

Learn the phrases separately at 70 BPM, chain them at 80, and only then chase 100. The tab is written at 100 but the solo already sounds real at 80, and a confident 85 beats a nervous 110 every time you play for another human. When you chain phrases, practice the seams as their own units, bar 4 into 5 and bar 8 into 9, because transitions fail before phrases do.

Then put it over the chords, because the phrasing only makes sense against them. Any A minor loop works: the Practice Jams backing tracks in A minor fit out of the box, or record yourself strumming Am, G, F, G one bar each in the studio and loop it. Think in dynamics: phrase one soft and vocal, phrase two building, phrase three loud. Same notes either way; twice the drama one way. Record a full take once a week and listen back. The gap between what it felt like and what it sounds like is your practice list.

Where to go after the series

Take stock for a second, because this is a graduation. Twelve lessons ago you were rebuilding your pick grip. You now alternate pick, play legato, bend in tune, keep subdivisions honest, run scale patterns three notes to a string, sequence and skip strings, tap, sweep, and you just performed a twelve-bar solo that uses all of it over a real progression.

Three habits carry you from here. Transcribe solos you love: even four bars lifted by ear from a record teaches more phrasing than a month of exercises. Write your own twelve bars over this same Am, G, F, G loop, stealing the structure (statement, run, fireworks) while the notes become yours; the full A minor scale map shows the territory beyond the boxes when you want more colors. And keep the techniques honest with short, focused drilling, since every one of them decays quietly the month you stop. Then find people to play with. A backing track keeps time; a band argues about it. Both are good for you.