Nothing beats a great guitar solo. The world’s greatest guitarists are at their best when they get to showcase their talent and pour their heart and soul into the solo.

All Along the Watchtower – Jimmy Hendrix

The well-deserving king of guitar solos has to be Jimmy Hendrix. The legendary player has done some amazing tricks with the guitar and All Along the Watchtower has a superb solo to listen to.
In fact, the song features four distinct guitar solos. The varied and characteristic solos show Hendrix’ visionary and unique style.

Eruption – Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen is another great guitarist you should look up to. His guitar solos have speed, precision and fun licks that guarantee you’ll always learn something new from his solos.

Eruption is among the top of the list. The solo features a unique echo effect and showcases how you can create amazing licks with just a bit of imagination.

Fool for Your Loving – Micky Moody

The classic Whitesnake song features a great solo by Micky Moody. It’s a great solo with all the core building blocks of a good solo. It doesn’t add anything that isn’t necessary, but it also doesn’t sound too naked!

If you want to learn more about Mick Moody’s guitar style and master some of the greatest Whitesnake hits, then check out Moody’s lessons at our website.

One – Kirk Hammett

If you love guitar solos with plenty of speed, then Metallica’s One is definitely a song you’ll love. Kirk Hammett’s guitar playing is fantastic and you probably don’t want to try this at home – unless you are a seasoned pro!

Free Bird – Allen Collins, Gary Rossington

The LynyrdSkynyrd classic features a stunning guitar solo by Allen Collins and Gary Rossington. Quite surprisingly, the song is the first song the band wrote together; despite the solo sounding like something only seasoned pros would be able to do.

Crossroads – Eric Clapton

Clapton is a massive guitar virtuoso with tons of amazing solos to pick from. But Crossroads is definitely one of the best, especially as the guitar solo is reportedly played in the wrong tune!

Eternal Sunshine – Jerry Crozier-Cole

If you love your guitar solos with a bit of blues and jazz influences, then the Eternal Sunshine by the Duval Project and featuring Jerry Crozier-Cole is a stunning listen. The guitar solo has all the best aspects of funky guitar playing and you can learn more about Crozier-Cole’s style from our website.

Floods – Dimebag Darrell

The guitar solo in Floods is a stunning piece of work that highlights well the importance of other instruments. The bass plays a crucial role in this tune and gives the solo the unique vibe. Naturally, Dimebag Darrell’s guitar playing gives the solo the needed final additions.

Texas Flood – Stevie Ray Vaughan

Another great guitar solo with a beautiful blues-feel to it can be found in the Texas Flood song. Stevie Ray Vaughan plays the solo in his unique style and the song has a magical sound to it all the way through. It seems like a song that took ages to create, although the guys only had a few days to record it!

Aqualung – Martin Barre

The guitar solo in Aqualung wasn’t originally planned to appear in the song, but the band felt it needed something more. So, Martin Barre picked up his guitar and played this funky tune, giving the song a great guitar solo!

Chords are the bread and butter of learning to play an instrument. But are the chords transferable from one instrument to another? If you know how to play specific chords on the piano, can you automatically know how to play them on the guitar?
Here’s a look at the similarities and differences between guitar and piano chords.

The Same, Yet Different

The short answer to the above question of “Are guitar chords to same as piano chords” is a very political answer of “Yes, but no”. This slightly confusing answer is down to the fact that although the specific notes to form a specific chord are the same for piano and guitar, the position of how you play them differs.

More importantly, there are slight differences in the tone colour of the sound depending on which instrument you are playing with. This means that you can’t always directly transfer the piano chords for the guitar.

A Few Example Chords

The slight differences are perhaps easiest explained through a few examples. With the following examples, it’s easier to see the similarity in notes, but the difference in the note order, for example.

Let’s take the Major G chord as the first example:

On the guitar the chord is formed by playing the following notes:

G B D G B G

The finger position on the guitar would look like this:

                        G          D         G          B          D         G         

Fret 1                                                                                     

Fret 2                          2                                                         

Fret 3              3                                                          4         

Fret 4                                                                                     

Fret 5                                                                                     

The above means that you are pressing down the G note on the third fret with your middle finger, the note D on the second fret with your index finger and the note G on the third fret (the bottom string) with your ring finger. The other notes are played as open notes.

On the other hand, the same chord is formed on the piano by playing the notes:

G B D

You can see the finger position on the piano from the below image:

Furthermore, the chord G major 9 (gmaj9) is another great example of the differences between the chord structures. The ninth chord of the G major would have five notes. But naturally, the guitar can only play four different notes at any time.

Therefore the chord on the guitar play be played by using notes:

G B F A

On the other hand, the piano gives you access to a number of notes. The ninth G major chord would be played like this:

G B D F A

Voicing Differences

To conclude, chords are essentially the same whether you are playing them on the guitar or the piano. What is different is the voicing of these chords. As the above examples show, you often have a more limited ability to play a specific chord on the guitar, which can make slight changes to the amount of notes you play with any given chord.

Because of the limitation on string numbers, guitar chords don’t always play the notes at the same time. These so-called open notes or arpeggios, are three or more notes which you don’t play simultaneously, yet are played close enough to each other to be considered as a chord. The difference to the same piano chord would be that the piano plays all the notes simultaneously.

If you are learning to play the guitar or the piano, then it will help a lot to know the chords in the other instrument. The slight differences will be quick to learn and you can often translate chords from one instrument to the other with minor tweaks.