Learn to Play Simple but Musical Solos with Just Five Notes in Open Position

To the uninitiated, guitar soloing can be both alluring and a little daunting—it seems to require a whole different kind of knowledge and facility on the fretboard than playing rhythm does. While it’s true that solos can be fast and complex, they certainly don’t have to be. You can build great, musically satisfying solos from very simple elements, just as you can create great songs from just a few chords. Take inspiration from Neil Young’s epic guitar solo in “Down by the River,” where he plays the same note no fewer than 38 times (!) in a row. Nothing fancy about that, but in context it’s totally gripping.

Welcome to a new Basics series that offers entry points into the world of soloing—for newcomers to lead playing as well as those looking to strengthen their foundations. With soloing, it can be discouraging to try to go straight from zero (strictly a rhythm player) to 60 (full-on shredder). Instead of racing into the tricky stuff, we’ll take it slowly in these lessons, looking at building blocks of solos like scales, chord shapes, and phrasing, starting right in the familiar territory of open position.

For this first installment, we’ll go into the musical realm where so many of us take our first steps in soloing: a classic blues progression in E and the pentatonic scale. While this lesson is rooted in a specific style, the concepts apply to any type of music, as we’ll explore throughout this series.  

Blue NotesIn essence, soloing involves picking from a set of notes that fit with the music you’re playing over, and putting them together into sequences and phrases—just as when you speak, you are drawing on words you know and combining them to make sentences. There are several ways to build a vocabulary of notes for soloing. In this lesson we’ll use one of the most common: the minor pentatonic scale.

The minor pentatonic, true to its name, has just five notes: 1 (the root), b3, 4, 5, and b7. The numbers are scale degrees, and they lay out a pattern that applies to any key. Take a look at Example 1, which shows the minor pentatonic scale in E in open position. The notes are:

1 b3 4 5 b7

E G A B D

Play the scale up and down, and notice the fret pattern: on strings 6, 2, and 1 you play the open string and the third fret; on strings 5, 4, and 3 you play the open string and the second fret. 

Break It DownNow let’s play pieces of the scale, as in the next series of examples. Take these one measure at a time. Play the examples as written, then follow the patterns I’m using and make up your own using other notes in the scale.

In Example 2a, play part of the scale on just two strings. 

In Example 2b, play four notes again but change direction. In the first measure, for instance, ascend the scale for three notes, then descend. 

In Example 2c, skip over scale notes, as in the first measure, where you jump from E (1) to A (4).

So far we’ve played only quarter notes; now let’s bring in eighths. In keeping with the blues groove we’ll be using, play with a swing feel—so a pair of eighth notes sounds like the first and third notes of a triplet (refer to the video, and also see Here’s How in the March/April 2025 issue for a guide to swing feel). In Example 2d, play a pair of eighth notes on beat 2; in Example 2e, play the eighths on beat 4.

Use Phrases and PatternsNow comes the good stuff: using these notes to create actual solos. We will play over a 12-bar E blues progression that I have recorded with a simple shuffle rhythm. In the video you can see the rhythm part by itself, then you’ll find it inset along with each solo.

It’s important to note we are using an E minor pentatonic scale, but the key is actually E major: the chords are E, A, and B7. Playing (or singing) notes from a minor scale over a major key progression creates a harmonic tension that’s fundamental to blues—and blues-influenced styles like rock and bluegrass. 

But let’s get rolling, and play some solos that use only notes of the open position E minor pentatonic. Two core principles are at work in the solos that follow, and we’ll continue to apply them through this whole series of lessons.

Play phrases. Think of your guitar during a solo as a vocalist. Sung melodies aren’t a continuous stream of notes; there’s a line, a pause, then another line, and so on. Aim for that quality in your solos, with lines/phrases separated by space. 

Create patterns. Every time you play a series of notes, you create a pattern—a particular sequence of pitch and rhythm. When you’re soloing, try repeating and playing off of the patterns you create. That’ll make a huge difference in tying your solos together musically. 

Take FlightFor our first solo, Example 3, start small and use only the four scale notes on the G and D strings (open and second fret). Is it possible to play a credible solo with just four notes? Let’s see.

Play the opening phrase in the first three bars, while the chords change from E to A and back to E. Then stop—and leave the rest of bar 3 plus bar 4 open, just as a blues singer might do. Starting in bar 5, repeat the opening phrase exactly, this time over an A chord going to E—and then take another extended pause. The final phrase, starting in bar 8, doesn’t repeat the earlier phrases precisely but uses similar patterns: the same note played three times on the beat, for instance, and a pair of eighth notes on beat 4.

While this solo isn’t tricky, in my book it is legit for sure—and sounds musical.

Take another pass in Example 4, this time using scale notes on the bottom three strings only. Start the opening phrase on beat 2, and repeat it exactly beginning in bar 5. The last phrase uses different notes but follows a very similar rhythmic pattern.

In Example 5, focus on strings 1–3, again playing a series of three phrases that use similar rhythms and melodic shapes.

Down to the RootsSo far in these solos, we haven’t paid particular attention to the chords we are playing over, as they cycle through E, A, and B7. In our final solo in this lesson, we’ll respond to those chord changes in an easy but impactful way: by playing the root of each new chord.

These root notes are already in our minor pentatonic scale. Look back at the scale in Ex. 1, and you will see there are E notes on the open sixth string; fret 2 of the fourth string; and the open first string. There are A notes on the open fifth string and fret 2 of the third string. And there are B notes on fret 2 of the fifth string and the open second string.

So in Example 6, each time the chord changes, play the root of the new chord right on the downbeat. In other words, play an E on beat 1 of measures 1, 3, 7, and 11; an A note on beat 1 of measures 2, 5, and 10; and a B note on beat 1 of measure 9.

Hitting these chord tones is a great way to lock your solo in more tightly with the progression and underscore the changes in the harmony. This is another idea we’ll continue to develop through this series. 

Now that you’ve worked through these examples, put away the tab, cue up the rhythm track, and start improvising your own lines. Happy soloing!

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.