How to Write a Melodic Prog Solo

Day 1. Ever After

Your primary goal on the first day of class is to get a quick win with a relatively simple solo. You'll start by drilling the major pentatonic scale up one string and learning how to play drop octaves. From there, Plini will break down the licks he's using one by one until you can get everything up to speed.

Each lesson contains a phrase-by-phrase breakdown of what Plini's playing. When you start learning the solo, you'll already have drilled the concepts and techniques behind each lick so you can adapt them to your own unique style.

‍Days 2-3. Canvas

What's more prog than an odd time signature?! Today, you'll learn how to rip a solo in 6/8 – this open and wide-feeling meter leave plenty of room for expressive articulation and dynamic building, which is what you'll focus on as you tackle the solo in two parts.

Specifically, you'll work on sliding, bending, trilling, and tapping to polish your playing. You'll also borrow some notes from C Lydian / A Dorian to spice up the sound of your lead vocabulary.

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Days 4-5. Boomer

There’s so much we can do with our existing harmonic and melodic information. Today, you'll tackle a whole new bag of prog tricks and put the focus on articulation. By getting into the cracks of articulating individual notes, we can get serious mileage out of common shapes like major pentatonic.

In addition to articulation, you'll work on hybrid picking and bends as you tackle this solo across two days of lessons. As always, Plini will walk you through his compositional mindset for the solo and break it down phrase by phrase.

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Frogtown Jam

With this soaring prog solo, you'll get an inside look at Plini's five-step songwriting process by learning how harmony, feel, and the rhythm section in a track can fuel inspiration when you're composing a solo.

Then, you'll dig into the B major pentatonic and E melodic minor scales as you tackle the solo phrase-by-phrase