Chord Tones Soloing

Session 1
Tommaso Zillio
musictheoryforguitar.com

Hi, there. This is Tommaso Zillio of musictheoryforguitar.com, welcome to this session

on the mini-course on chord tone soloing.

We’re gonna see a very simple exercise to get used to play notes that are inside chords.
As you know already, chord tone soloing simply means to hit some target notes when
you play your solo and make sure that those target notes are the notes in the chord that’s
playing in that moment.1

So how do we do that? How do we get started doing that? Because, again, there are
many, many things you need to do at the same time:

1. Knowing the chord progression,

2. (Knowing) where you are in the chord progression,

3. (Knowing) what notes are in the chord,

4. Finding those notes on the guitar, and

5. Play them and make some music.

And the way to do all this is to break it down into little pieces so that it’s simple for
us to do and train every single aspect so that you get used to it, and it becomes second
nature.
Now the exercise I’m about to explain is very simple in theory, but when you do it it’s
a bit less simple. The greatest danger of this exercise, and I’m warning you right now, the
greatest danger of this exercise is that you discount it, you underestimate it, and you just
don’t do it.
So even if this exercise, to you, looks super simple, obvious, something that requires
no brain, no thinking, etc., even in this situation, I beg you on my knees, do it anyway!
That’s super important, just do it.
1
You may want to re-read that last sentence.

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 2
 If you really know how to do it, just do five minutes of it. And if it’s super simple, I’m
gonna show you how to make it more complex in a moment so that it’s a bit more of an
exercise for you. But please, please, please the first time you do it, do the simple version!

Here’s the simple version. So I have here a backing track. It contains (the chords) Am
and G:

• Every time the Am chord plays, I’m gonna play only one note, either an A or a C or
an E, one of the notes in Am.2

• And when the G chord is playing, I’m gonna play only one note, either a G, a B, or
a D, meaning one of the notes in the chord of G major.

One note per bar. So every time the chord changes, I’m playing ONE note.
I’m not putting any phrasing on those notes, I’m not playing vibrato, slide, etc. I’m
not trying to make music, I’m just mechanically playing one note.
That’s the exercise you have to do, no more, no less. Here’s how it sounds, and then
I’ll explain to you exactly how to do it. If you know how to do it already, go ahead of
course, but if you need some explanation, don’t worry, in a moment I’ll give that to you
too.

Here’s how it sounds. So that’s the backing track: Am and G. So on Am, I play only
one note; on a G, I play only one note, nothing else, only one note in the chord.

q
Am
qG Am
q
G q
Am

q
8
5 7 7 8
 5

I can jump around, okay? Or I can stay close by, okay? Just this for the whole backing
track, just one note per bar.
Now, there are many situations that can happen here:

• You find this super easy? Great! In a moment I’m going to explain how to make it
more complex.
2
If you do not know what that the Am chord is made by the notes A, C, E,
then I strongly suggest you read this free eBook first, it will make everything easier:
www.musictheoryforguitar.com/beginningmusictheoryguide.html

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 3
 • You find this not particularly difficult, but hard? Okay, fine: keep doing it until it
becomes easy, okay? You have no idea how to do it? Great, that’s how you do it:
On the PDF file together with this video, you’re gonna find a few diagrams, you’re
gonna find the backing track, of course, but you’re gonna find also a few diagrams.
And the diagrams are the diagrams of the Am pentatonic scale, this scale here, and
you’ll find in different chords, the notes for the Am chord and the note for the G
chord.
So if that’s the first time you did this and you know how to do it, you limit yourself
to this area of the fretboard on this pattern here and you just play the notes in this
pattern, don’t jump around, okay?
Now, again, to be perfectly fair, the B note is not in the Am pentatonic, but when
the G chord is playing, you play that note too, it’s a legal note when the G chord is
playing. So, again, if you want to limit yourself to be around here...that’s how it’s
gonna sound, see?

Again, nothing complex...I’m not concerned

if it sounds good or not...I’m just staying here,
okay? This is not meant to be music, this is not
We Break Down Chord
meant to sound good, this is meant just for you Tone Soloing Into
to get used to find chord notes when the chord
change, and it’s simple, okay? It’s just one note. Simple Exercises That
Now, if every now and then you miss a bar
or two because you need to concentrate, you We Can Practice Easily.
lose your bearings, that’s okay, no problem, re-
lax, okay? So you just look at the diagrams in the PDF file (see end of this document) so
you know where the right notes are and you know where the wrong notes are and you
hit only the right notes.

Now if this exercise it’s too easy for you, you make this slightly more complex. How
can you make it more complex? Well, rather than doing it on this pentatonic pattern,
you can do it somewhere else like on this... and you find all your notes around here, or
you can use a three-note per string pattern, okay? And you find your notes only in these
patterns.3
So you pick another scale pattern and you find the notes of the chord in that scale
pattern.
You can use any scale pattern, okay? I prefer to use the 3-notes-per-string and the
pentatonic (patterns), some people prefer to use the CAGED system. I don’t like the
CAGED system as you guys know.
3
Three-notes-per-string patterns and their useare covered in my course Master of the Modes:
www.musictheoryforguitar.com/scalesandmodesguitarlessons.html

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 4
 Now, somebody would think that if I use pentatonic case plus extra chord notes, it’s
like the CAGED system... not really, okay? We could disagree on that, okay, but that’s not
the point for today.
I’m just saying that the focus is to hit chord notes: you can use any scale pattern you
want!
Now, this is still too easy for you? Great, then don’t use scale patterns, do it all over the
fretboard. So jump around the fretboard, okay? Even if there’s no connection between the
notes, just jump around the fretboard, okay? As long as you hit chord notes, no problem,
okay?
So you can stay on a single area around, stay on the first three strings or go around the
whole fretboard.
If that’s still too easy for you, then now play TWO chord notes per bar, but limit your-
self to chord notes! So, Am, G, Am, G, Am, it’s easy to jump around the pattern, G, Am,
G, Am, and so on and so forth, okay?

ˆ ˆ
Am G Am G Am
ˆ ˆ
ciccio
ˆ

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ
8
5 8 7 8
 8 5
5 7
9 7

So two notes, it’s still too easy? Play more chord notes! Now if you play more (than
two) chord notes though, do not do this: do not just take on an arpeggio shape and bang
it up and down, don’t do this:

Ÿ
Am
ŸŸ Ÿ ŸŸŸŸŸŸ Ÿ ŸŸŸ ŸŸŸ ŸŸŸŸŸŸŸ ŸŸŸŸ
G
Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ


8
12 8 8 12 8 12 8 8 12 8 10 7 7 10 7 10 7 7 10 7
10 10 10 10 8 8 8 8
9 9 7 7

Because you’re not learning anything here, you’re not learning anything, you’re just
doing a technical exercise! What you want to do is to play notes, not arpeggio shapes. We
are going to use arpeggio shapes in a future session, but not today!
If you want to visualize this stuff using arpeggio shapes4 , great, but don’t play them
in order, so try to play them out of order, okay? That would be fine:
4
We cover this in Session 5 of this course.

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 5
 Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ
Am G
Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ 
  

8
12 8 7
 10
9 7
8
7

(NOTE: the D at the end of the 1st bar is an ’anticipation’ i.e. playing a note of the
chord just before that chord is played. It’s used a lot in real music, but it’s not technically
part of this exercise: I just got carried away when I was playing it)

So I’m still playing on our arpeggios, but I’m not playing (the arpeggio shape ’straight’):
I’m not just going in order shredding up and down, I’m jumping around on the arpeggio
shape, okay?

So here’s the exercise, it’s super simple and, I mean, as simple as it gets. It can still be
hard! ”Simple” doesn’t mean ”easy”, okay?
Sit down, take your backing track, one note per bar on a single pattern, have the
diagrams in front of you. And, again, if you can do this in different places (on the guitar
neck), that’s great too. But get started, and even if you do you the whole course only on
a single Am pentatonic diagram, diagram, that is great because you get used to playing
chord notes. Simple exercise, practice this for a bit and then you can watch the next
session.

And until next session, enjoy.

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 6
The Backing Tracks
The green circle indicate the chord tones inside the pentatonic scale. The dark green
circles indicate the chord tones that are outside the pentatonic scale (you can still use
them).

Track 1: Am G

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 7
Track 2: C F

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 8
About the Author

Tommaso Zillio, is a recording artist, com-

poser, session guitarist, guitar trainer and in-
structional author.
His expertise as a teacher is on training gui-
tar players on how to use music theory to cre-
ate their own style and express themselves. His
main focus is on helping guitar players to think
both inside and outside the box and to eliminate
anything that can restrict their free expression
on the instrument.
Tommaso is a charter member of the Elite
Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and earned the es-
teemed ”Elite Master Guitar Teacher” title given
to less than 10 guitar teachers world wide to
date.
Tommaso is also the founder and owner of
the Edmonton Guitar Music School where, to-
gether with his team of teachers, he trains be-
ginner to advanced guitar players to reach their
musical goals.
Tommaso holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics
from the International School of Advanced
Studies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste, Italy, and to
date he has published a dozen peer-reviewed
research articles on topics ranging from Physics to Ecology.
Tommaso #1 favorite composer is J.S. Bach, followed closely by F. Chopin. His other
main influences and favorite musicians are: L. van Beethoven, J.P. Rameau, A. Vivaldi,
Frank Zappa, Dream Theater, all Ozzy’s guitarists, Glen Tipton, Tom Hess, Andy Tim-
mons, Eric Johnson, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Pink Floyd, Astor Piazzolla, Mike Oldfield,
and many others too numerous to mention here.

For more information about Tommaso visit his website at:

http://www.tommasozillio.com.
Tommaso can be contacted at: Tommaso@musictheoryforguitar.com

This eBook is under international copyright protection. It cannot be copied, sold,

rented, loaned, or distributed in any way whatsoever, without written consent of Gui-
tar Mastery Solutions, Inc.

Guitar
c Mastery Solutions, Inc. musictheoryforguitar.com 9