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when playing solos, whether you are j or anyone else sometimes it’s nice to think in terms of chord tones – arpeggios. depending on what chords are happening you can play the tones in that chord especially on the beat. a lot of times you can play non-chord tones from the scale, or even chromatic notes on the upbeat. one thing j does a lot is to go to the major 7 on a I major chord or on a IV major chord. another neat thing to do is to bend the major second of a chord over a major I chord or a dominant chord. everyone does that including j. another cool thing that people like about j’s style is that he does a lot of strumming. like the second solo on thumb starts out with him strumming (in the rhythm of like a drum roll or something) on a high inversion of D7 (D dominant seven). in rock solos its nice to think in terms of long held notes – that’s why tons of sustain is important, intersperced with melodic runs. most of the time playing fast does not really give that much drama – its the note you end on and hold that counts. and the arc of the melody in the solo. most solos go up and down – never just all the way to the highest note and keep ascending. it can be nice to think of the melody in your head and the way its phrased. you don’t have to play the same notes of the melody but if you have it in your head sometimes it helps you pace your solo. also, never play the perfect fourth over a major or dominant chord because it sound bad. it sounds like you have changed too early to a major chord a 4th away. try it over a blues progression and you will see what i mean. it realeases the tension too soon. but whatever you do keep soloing right?
if you have a tube amp, a nice pedal is the ibanez tube screamer. they have a couple different varieties but have recently reissued the ts9. i think it is the one with three knobs. it’s green and costs about US$100 or so, maybe a little less. i sometimes use two at the same time depending on the context.
