Smooth Guitar Solo Lesson – Santana

In this installment of the "famous solos" series, we will take a look at the main solo for "Smooth" by Santana.

Guitarist Carlos Santana has been a highly successful and influential guitarist since the sixties, but with the release of Santana's "Supernatural" in 1999 and it's chart topping single "Smooth", he achieved his greatest commercial success by far.

"Smooth" is pretty much a guitar solo from beginning to end but for this Smooth guitar solo lesson I have decided to concentrate on what I feel is the main guitar solo of the song.

We have melodies brought out with half step bends and hammer-ons, followed by the second half of the solo that incorporates large bends and a lot of fast picking to really bring the entire solo to a climax.

All in all I think this solo is a great study on how to construct a solo. There is a definitive beginning, middle and ending to the whole thing. That is something that is desperately missing from many player's solos. You need to be able to tell a story within the solo, not simply play licks that you know and Carlos Santana does a great job of that here.

There are some challenging sections of the solo, especially towards the end, but if you break it down into small sections I think this solo would be a great study for any intermediate to advanced player.

Try to memorize the sound of the solo before attempting to play it. That will help you immensely with the first half of the solo that basically plays the same notes over and over but phrases them completely differently each time through.

Simply following along with your ear is a much easier way to play something like that. Remember, half of what it takes to become a great guitar player or all around musician is completely reliant on how well you can listen to music and absorb it.

Obviously we are just scratching the surface of all the great guitar parts we could learn by playing "Smooth". If you guys want to learn the entire song remember all it takes is this video lesson getting 600 YouTube "likes" and then I will teach the entire song note-for-note.

Just click the link below to open up this lesson's YouTube page and then click the "like" button under the video. After it reaches 600 YouTube likes I will be right back here teaching the entire song. 🙂

Smooth Guitar Solo Lesson's YouTube Page <-- Click here then click the "like" button under the video!

OK good luck with this one. I will see you guys back here soon with the full song I hope...

Carl..

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Smooth Guitar Solo Lesson - Santana