Your ability to play and create your own awesome guitar solos will be
determined mainly by your guitar phrasing skills. Think about your
favorite guitar players. We think you will agree that what makes their
guitar solos great is not ‘what they play’, but ‘HOW they play it’!

The definition of “Phrasing” is ‘HOW’ you play what you play.

One of the reasons many guitarists lack good phrasing skills is that
they allow their fingers to create the music instead of their mind.
Unfortunately, there sometimes seems to be a disconnection
between the fingers and the brain. When it comes to guitar phrasing
you must train your mind to “think” in phrases as you play. Here’s
what we mean. When we are speaking, we do so in a way that is
naturally broken up into short sentences. We usually pause at the
end of sentences before continuing on with the next sentence. These
natural pauses allow us to make our point in a way that is clear to
the listener. If we didn’t pause between sentences, our speech would
be confusing and would likely irritate the listener.

Many guitar players lack these basic phrasing skills that come so
easily to us in speech. So what can you do to improve your own
ability to think and play in phrases? Here is a valuable exercise we
want you to try:

Find a backing track you like without any lead guitar on it—just
drums, bass, and maybe rhythm guitar—and as you play the track, 
try and sing the equivalent of a musical sentence. Don’t worry if
your voice isn’t the greatest in the world (ours certainly isn’t!). Just
sing any melody that comes to mind over the track. Then pause.
Then sing another melody. Pause. Repeat. Continue this for one
minute and you will have created a musical paragraph consisting
of several musical sentences. If you practice doing this often enough
you will start to change the way you think about your own soloing
and phrasing. The emphasis becomes more about communication
and self-expression instead of just playing licks and patterns.

Now, for the second part of this exercise pick up your guitar and do
the same thing. The only difference now is that instead of singing
the musical sentence you are now playing it on your guitar. First
play a melody on your guitar. Keep in mind all that we have talked
about so far. Then pause. Then play another short melody. Repeat
this for one minute. If you have a way to record yourself going
through this process you can listen back and make your own
judgment about how you think your musical paragraph sounds.

Doing this musical exercise is a very powerful way you can begin
training your mind to work in tandem with your fingers to begin
improving your phrasing today!