The Steve Stine Podcast

What Is The Music Asking Of You? A Guide to Authentic Guitar Soloing

• Steve Stine

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What makes a guitar solo truly musical? Is it technical prowess, scale knowledge, or something deeper? In this revelatory exploration of improvisation, Steve Stine strips away the technical complexities to focus on what really matters: creating authentic guitar solos that respond to what the music is asking for.

Forget about simply memorizing more scales or arpeggios. Steve challenges the conventional approach to improvisation by emphasizing the crucial connection between your ears, brain, and fingers. "You have to practice improvising," he explains. "You can't just practice exercises all day long and learn more scales and more fretboard things and then expect that your improvisation is going to get better." This simple but profound insight shifts the focus from accumulating knowledge to developing musical intuition.

Through practical demonstrations across multiple backing tracks—funk, rock, major key ballads, and blues—Steve reveals how different musical contexts demand different approaches. For groove-based music, connecting rhythmically becomes paramount. For major key compositions, melodic awareness takes center stage. Throughout all examples, Steve demonstrates how to break free from predictable "boxes" where phrases all have the same shape and motion, offering instead a more speech-like, expressive alternative.

Perhaps most valuable is Steve's explanation of balancing "connected" playing (locked to the rhythm) with "free time" playing (momentarily detached from strict rhythmic constraints). This interplay creates the dynamic tension that characterizes the most engaging solos from legends like Robin Ford and Gary Moore, who could "play nice and melodic and then all of a sudden rip something out and then go back in."

Ready to transform your approach to improvisation? Whether you're struggling with connecting to the groove, creating varied musical phrases, or finding your authentic voice as a soloist, Steve's insights provide a clear path forward. Check out the GuitarZoom Academy for personalized guidance on your musical journey.

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Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

Steve:

Hey Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy here. Thank you so much for joining me Today. I'm gonna be talking about some of the crucial things I think about when it comes to soloing and try and make this a little bit easier for you to understand what approaches to take when you're trying to actually improvise over something. Oftentimes, what happens as guitar players is we're so locked into scales and arpeggios and all these kind of things. You know all these kind of things, and not that any of that's bad, it's all great but what I want you to think about is more than just which scale you know pentatonic versus diatonic or something like that or you know, knowing your whole fretboard or something like that is what is the music asking of you and how do you respond in a way that sounds authentic, that sounds real, even if you're limited on your knowledge or you're limited on your visualization of your fretboard or something like that. And so I want to give you some things to think about, and I've got a number of things written down here. If you're listening to this as a podcast, you'd be able to find the video to watch what's happening here on YouTube, so you can always do a search for that. But let me start at the beginning here. So for me, the most important thing is when you're given a musical situation, you have to ask yourself what is this asking of me? Is it more of a groove-centric kind of song, where I need to worry about my rhythm and that sort of thing a little bit more my connection rhythmically to the music or is it something where I need to really be aware of trying to connect on a melodic sense? And there's a million different situations here.

Steve:

But what I did was I went out on Spotify and I just found a couple of backing tracks that I wanted to use as examples for you. So I apologize if the audio levels change a little bit. You know the Spotify tracks or whatever, but you'll get the idea. So what I want to start with here is it's a funk track, a funk backing track that I found on Spotify, kind of cool. Okay, now let's listen as it kicks in. Okay, so this is in C minor. Okay. So I haven't practiced these or anything. I've just kind of found some things that I thought would work.

Steve:

So this is a prime example of a track where what you really want to try and focus in on is making a connection to the groove, okay, the beat, and then worry about your phrasing. So in tracks like this, anything that's kind of less about melody and more about groove, you want to try and think about how you can craft ideas on your fretboard, even if it's just in one position on the fretboard. That's entirely up to you. But you know, not just playing what I like to call boxes. Boxes are when you go, you know like everything is the same size, the motion is kind of always the same. It's just going up or going down. You know you're always starting on the same beat. You need to be really you need to be careful.

Steve:

And again, before I even get into all of this, remember, in order to develop a good sense of improvisation, you need to practice improvising. You can't just practice exercises all day long and learn more scales and more you know fretboard things and then expect that your improvisation is going to get better just because you're learning more things. You have to actually practice the art of improvisation to make this work. So it should become part of your daily routine is just working on practicing and it shouldn't be a different backing track and a different key with a different tempo and different chords every single day. You have to find things that kind of appeal to you, that fit your practice, fit what you're capable of doing, and then sit and nurture those and get comfortable with those and you might have a couple of different backing tracks or whatever. That's perfectly fine.

Steve:

But the problem I find a lot with guitar players is that they're just constantly trying to do everything and they're never really settling in in something If you're not you but just anybody. If some popular guitar player is a bluesy kind of player, they spend most of their time playing in the blues realm. They're not always playing in a metal realm where if you're a metal guitar player, you spend most of your time in the metal realm. Now I get, you might want to do different things and that's great, but you need to nurture each one. So in this particular track I've got C minor here. That's what we're in.

Steve:

So now, whether or not it's pentatonic, whether or not it's diatonic, I can use all of those kinds of things if I have the capability. But what I need to worry about more than pentatonic or diatonic is can I create phrases that match and connect to the groove, so a tempo? In this case the tempo is a little fast. So do I have the physical skills of being able to play Ba-da-bum-ba-bum-bum-bum-bum Like I like to scat sing in my mind. So, as I'm listening to this, my fingers can't do the work. If my brain doesn't know what it wants my fingers to do, it has to start with your thought process and then trickle down to your fingers onto the fretboard. So it's very important that you not only practice the physicality of playing, but your ability to make music as a human being, right?

Steve:

So as you're listening to this track, I might not even play along at first. I'm just getting used to thinking about different sized phrases starting in different places, right, like a singer might do, or like a trumpet player might do, or a saxophone player might do, and it takes time. But as I'm listening to this track, you know I don't just want to go Now. That in itself as a phrase could be cool, okay, but then I've got to follow it up with something different. So there needs to be a juxtaposition of tempos starting points, stopping points, repetition. Those are the kind of things I want you to think about, more than just knowing my entire fretboard or knowing the notes on my fretboard. Again, those are all great things, fretboard, or knowing the notes on my fretboard. Again, those are all great things, but we need to focus on is can I create some sort of groove that's engaging, that connects to this music as I'm listening to it? Let me try it again. Thank you See.

Steve:

So first things, first is connection of the groove. The second thing is start making phrases, sentences of different sizes that start and end in different places. You don't have to make everything monumental and play something. It takes time to learn how to play with a groove, but I like to tell people that if you can actually learn how to play to the groove, connect to the tempo, to the subdivision of the beat, like I'm doing right now, that's half the battle, like in almost any situation rock, blues, you know, ballad, all that sort of thing. It's just which I'm going to show you in just a second here. But as the tempos get slower and slower it becomes harder to do that, because at these faster tempos we've got more availability to be able to create that connection Again, if we can actually do it technically and all that sort of thing. So that's my first example is for you to try and get used to thinking about connecting to the groove, okay, and then, once you've got that connection happening, start thinking about scat singing, creating phrases, that sort of thing.

Steve:

If you've heard me talk about meandering before, that's a great technique to practice meandering. It's a great technique to practice toering. It's a great technique to practice, to develop your ability of being able to play within a position on the fretboard and get creative with your motion. So you're not just going up and down Again, nothing wrong with that, you can do that. But if you do that all the time it gets monotonous and it gets boring for both you and for your listeners. So you need to think about that a little bit.

Steve:

Now I'm going to move on to a second one here. Again, I don't really know much about these tracks, I just found them this morning. But let me play this one. This one's called G minor funky rock. So let's look at this one. See what's a little bit different here. So obviously the key Okay. So more rock and roll here, but still a groove Ba, dum, bum, bum, bum. Okay. So you know, because it's it's more rock there. Again, I think they're probably pretty much the same in terms of my approach. You know, obviously in here I can get a little more, maybe aggressive with the rock attitude of you know all of these kind of you know that kind of stuff, playing more fast things. If you've got that available to you, you know playing guitar. Let me say this too In both of these realms, as we go through all these tracks, you're either connecting to the rhythm, connecting to the groove, which you need to learn how to do.

Steve:

You've got to learn how to connect to that groove and then be able to execute that from your brain to your fingers, to your fretboard. But the other thing that you do sometimes is you'll play in what I like to call free time, which is just letting go. You're not just playing quarter notes or eighth notes or 16th notes or triplets or something like that. You're just kind of letting it go and doing this. Let me show you an example. So if I was doing something that was connecting, and then I'm going to disconnect and play free, watch this, that's connected. Right Now I go to Something faster. So in that part I'm not really focusing on connecting to the rhythm, I'm just playing. Now I might still be connecting to the rhythm, because it's hard not to sometimes, but the point is that when you're doing, you're not really thinking about connecting to that groove at that point.

Steve:

The problem is, if you never connect to the groove, it sounds like you're disconnected to the music. And that's what happens with a lot of players is that they're trying to improvise over things and they're not finding the groove, or the groove's a little too fast. You know they found the wrong backing track or whatever the situation might be. They don't know their position well enough on the fretboard, or again, there's a myriad of things that can be remedied. That might be a problem. But the problem is is if you don't ever connect to that groove, it just feels like you're not connected to the music. Right, so you've got to learn how to connect to the groove and then, if you decide you want to disconnect and play more free, that adds another element of uniqueness and musicality, and then you reconnect again.

Steve:

You see, there's a big difference between never connecting. It's just like melody, like if you're just playing through a scale and hoping that the notes you're playing connect to the chords. Sure, sometimes you're going to get it and it's going to go. Oh, this is why people say well, sometimes when I jam to things or improvise to things, it feels great, and then other times I'm just completely lost. Well, that's why? Because you're getting lucky sometimes and then you're getting unlucky other times, and the goal isn't to be lucky or unlucky, it's to have the skill. So, when it comes to melody which we'll get to in a little bit the key here is is know what you're trying to do, like. That's the point of practice and learning right To progress forward and to learn how these things actually work. So, if I go to the next one now, the next one's a complete different shift.

Steve:

This is playing in major, where the other two, because they were more funky, I was playing more in minor. Now, again, that's another conversation in itself, but it's not doing as much, okay, it's slower, okay, there's obviously some chord changes there that I would want to figure out, which I haven't done yet because I just threw these in. But let's think about this. So, if I was to take this and start trying to play over it with the groove context so I know it's in G major, okay, sounds okay, okay, but what am I missing? Well, because it's in major, I really need to worry, especially because it's kind of slow like this. I can do all of that. There's nothing wrong with any of that, okay, but I need to think about trying to make a connection to these chords, and in order to do that, I need to know what the chord changes are. And then I need to be able to go to my guitar and start making some sort of connection to these chords.

Steve:

And again, there's a dozen ways you can do this, depending on your learning process. You know what makes sense in your brain, whether it's coming from more of a theoretical angle or more of a visual angle. There's lots of ways to do this, but the first thing we need to do is think about what the chord changes are. So it starts on G, we know that. Then it goes to E, minor, right, and then here it goes to probably C, c, and then to G back, and then probably D. So I might do some other stuff later, but let's just start with that. So it's G, e, minor, c, g, d, okay.

Steve:

So now what I want to do is because it's slower and it's major, I want to start thinking about how I could make some connection to those chords in a melodic way. So here comes G. Now I'd have to think to myself well, what do I know about the chord G? And then how do I, and transfer that onto the guitar. Okay, so you might know G is G, b and D, because you know your theory.

Steve:

But if you don't know where G, b and D are on your fretboard in one place, two places, 10 places, whatever it might be to actually start creating the music, because you know scale shapes, probably, if you're listening to this. But do you know where the notes are that you're looking for inside those scale shapes? You see, that's where the disconnect can happen. So what I need to be thinking about is here comes G. So now I could do, you know, I could go to G, and then here comes E minor, go to an E, and then here comes C. Now I'd have to know that C is right here. Right, c is not a pentatonic note, you know, in terms of G, major pentatonic. But I'd have to be able to find it, you see.

Steve:

So that's the process that you would take if you didn't really know how to do this. You just start with basic things like just connecting to the uh, the root of each chord. That's okay, nothing wrong with that at all. So one thing that I would do is I would I would find a position on the guitar and then I'd start thinking about not just groove in this case, but trying to make that melodic connection. So let me try this a little bit. Let me show you just a little bit, and if you're listening you can. You won't see, but you can hear what I'm doing here.

Steve:

So here comes our track, here comes E, minor and here comes C. So I'm connecting to a C right there, a C chord, there's our G chord, there's our G and our D. Here comes G again. Maybe I do something kind of same. Here comes C, again G, d. So you see, I can move between the groove idea that I had Whoops, I dropped my pick. I could move between the groove idea that I had before to this melodic idea.

Steve:

I would probably start with a melodic thing Again fast, slow, high, low. This is entirely up to you and it depends. Like I wouldn't start this thing going, like that would sound ridiculous, right, because the song just started. I need to ease into all of these things. So I'm listening to the music. I'm thinking to myself what is the music asking of me? Because this is more slow, major. I'm listening to the music. I'm thinking to myself what is the music asking of me? Because this is more slow major, I'm going to have to make some sort of melodic connection. This is why people find major harder than minor, because minor you don't really have to do as much of that most of the time. I'm just being honest. Major you have to be able to connect melodically more, which means you've got to know a little bit more about your fretboard. You've got to know a little bit more about your fretboard. You got to know a little bit more about musicality theory in some capacity.

Steve:

Okay, now let's take a look at the next one. The next one is a hard rock, fast guitar. There wasn't a lot of options here on Spotify that I could find with the groove thing. I could try and make some some sort of melody to that. But because it's fast, it also gives me the opportunity to do the shreddy thing right. You could be doing more stuff like this, right, but you wouldn't have to. You could start off doing stuff where it's more group-oriented.

Steve:

Now, if you guys have the skill, you can double that. Okay, it sounds like it's like a. Well, let's figure it out here. So we've got E to B. Okay, so it's going from E minor to C to A minor to B minor or B major, one of the two. So if I was doing it melodically I'd start thinking, okay, so let's connect to those chords. So here comes E minor I'm going to just do something like that to connect to B minor. Here comes now A, b. I'm going to just do something like that to connect to the computer. Here it comes Now A, b, c. Something like that would be great, and I could combine all of these ideas. I just don't have to do it all in the first five seconds, right, I can span these out as I go.

Steve:

I could start nice and slow with a melody, doing some groove things, start doing some shreddy things again, whatever works for you, okay, so this is something to think about a little bit. I'm going to keep going here. Hopefully you're you're not getting bored. The next one's going to be a slow rock ballad. So let's listen to this one again. Again, I don't remember what these words are. Okay, so definitely minor. Right, it's not rock in terms of the last one, it's more of a minor kind of.

Steve:

But because it's slow like this, if I think about the groove, let's focus on the groove for a second. Just looking at the groove, see, because it's a little bit slower, it's a little bit harder to make connection to just that groove. Okay, so oftentimes what happens is, as the song gets slower, your free time playing becomes a little bit more prominent. So let's think about this a little bit. As this keeps going, I can still connect there, but and free, see. So this might be a nice situation where I could kind of move back and forth between kind of locking into that groove a little bit, but because it's slow I can't stay there. I'm going to have to do a little more free time with it.

Steve:

Okay, now moving into blues, just again. All of these concepts that I'm talking about we go through on a regular basis inside Guitar Zoom Academy. If you're interested, you can always head over to GuitarZoomcom, check out the Academy, you know, sign up for a consult, see if it's something that you're interested in. But when we go to blues again, blues is going to be a little bit different. If I do a traditional 12 bar blues here. So it's an A, there's your groove, there's my D chord.

Steve:

Back to A. Here comes E, d, d, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g E, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, f, g, e, minor together to create these blues phrases, right. But if I went to something like minor blues, minor blues changes. Let's do a slow minor blues here. I don't know what key this is in, We'll figure it out. E minor Now, if I was so, that'd be connecting to the groove and there's nothing wrong with that.

Steve:

That's great. Now let's try and do a little free time, guitar solo. See how I can move back and forth between those realms of locking into the groove. Free time, again, because of the players that I like, the way I've learned how to play. I love the Robin Forty, gary Moore play nice and melodic and then all of a sudden you kind of rip something out and then go back in. That kind of thing.

Steve:

That's what I like Doesn't mean that anybody else has to like of thing. That's what I like, doesn't mean anybody else, you know, has to like that, but that's what I enjoy. And then connecting to those, those chords as they're moving along. I can do that not all of the time, but sometimes to make sure I'm connecting to those chords and, you know, giving homage to those chords as they're coming across, and then other times I'm just jamming. So that's the beauty of minor is minor allows you to do more of this freestyle thing where when we were doing that funk thing, I got to connect more. It doesn't mean I can't do free time. There's no rights or wrongs to this stuff. It's just what works.

Steve:

What is the music asking of you and how can you connect as a musician, as a guitar player, the music asking of you and how can you connect as a musician, as a guitar player, so it sounds and feels musical to you and to your listener. You don't want to validate it afterwards. Going well, it didn't sound very musical because of A, b and C. They don't want to hear that, they just want to hear music. So it doesn't matter how smart you are or how many scales you know or all these other things. You have to learn how to convert all of those thoughts into something that translates into music. That's what's important. All right, so take care, stay positive. Hopefully this helped you a little bit and be sure to check out the Guitar Zoom Academy If this kind of thing is what you want to learn how to do, but you struggle with the whys and the hows and all that kind of stuff to get there. I guarantee you we can get you there All right. So take care and I'll talk to you soon.

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Steve Stine

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