Hey guys,

I always hear people talking about guitarists with a unique note choice like Eddie van Halen... whatsup with that? I mean, is there a way to explain what's so special about a guitarist's note choice? Is it about modes and timing?

The reason I'm asking this is because I want to have my own style and maybe by analyzing other unique players I will achieve that.

I'm sorry if this question is a bit weird or if there's no answer to this, but I was just wondering

Think if you want a phrase to create suspense, be sad or be a climax, choose a suitable kind of chord and then do that arpeggio over what chord is in the backing. This is just my advice and i haven't been taught it so it may be wrong but it works alright for me.

My guess is that note choice stands exactly what it says - the choice of note sequences that are specific to one player. We all build our own note choices during our playing, and this is what makes us unique in the end I guess.

Hmm yeah I guess you're right.

A lot of players sound the same though! I gotta be creative then.

Any tips on how to improve note choice?

Think of the phygrian mode, it has a b2 which is a distingishable tone of that mode. (no other mode of the major scale has a b2 interval) If you select that note and put emphesis on it I suppose that's note selection. You wanted to give that phygrian feel to the song so you picked the b2.

Note choice- modes aside for now, is alot about creativity. You should know that the "strong" notes in a minor scale are the root and fifth- and the note that makes it sad sounding, the minor 3rd. Next i find that notes like the 7th and 2nd are good to lean on for tension- as to me they cry out to be resolved to the root.

I'm no expert here- but there is alot of creative genius out there. Alot of practise improvising and ear training will help you out here for sure

Thanks !

I also hear stuff about 'landing notes'. Should I always try to land on a note that's in the chord?

Note choice is the worst nightmare for every player,guitarist,pianist etc.

That is endless research,no end in sight indeed.
You can easily notice the same thing with some famous players.
They have changed the way they play through years,
using different phrasing ideas for another record etc.

And it's not that much involved with the scale they use
cause many of them use same scales but still they sound pretty different.
It's the way they think,feel,hear the music etc.



Those are solid landing notes,
when you land on the note that's in chord at the same time.
But sometimes you wanna do totally different thing
and you lay on 4th per example.
Just another way of choosing what to play.

Thanks for the replies boys

I guess that there's no easy way or a plan to develop this skill. Just hard work and being awesome haha.

Oh by the way, I voted for that insane shred of yours Muris. Wanna sell your hands to me for a day?

Apart from Locrian, but the diminished first degree makes that pretty hard to confuse with Phryg

I've wondered about this as well..
I usually tend to pick the notes that sounds good with the rest of the song

whoops, I'm still a theory n00b =/

I was just being smart Your basic point was spot on

Another thing about note choice is the intervals you choose to use. There are the typical intervals that alot of guitarists use, then there are the unique ones.

Playing with stranger intervals within a phrase can be alot more rewarding, but it can also be disasterous if you aren't careful.

My advice would be to take some licks that you already know and change them up in as many ways that you can think of. Even a Pentatonic box played in a certain way and jumping around the intervals you can come up with very unique sounding phrases.


Daniel