Learning to play solos on guitar is one of the more difficult things; learning to play them fast - even more so. When I was learning to play the guitar, I'd had a lot of difficulty with this. Every time I would ask someone to show me how they do it, they would just play the solo - fast; and instead of explaining they'd say something along the lines of "oh, I just do it somehow."

Since it looked so easy, yet I couldn't do it, I decided I didn't have what it takes and quit. Until I learned the real reason why they play so good - practice. That's right, there's no magic here. Start by learning to play the solo slow, practice bit by bit - when you learn a few bits well, you can start putting them together.

A few things to look out for:

• Maintain rhythm - even though you're playing slow, don't change the flow of the solo
• Finger positions and movements - make sure you're not making it difficult for yourself to move from riff to riff
• Feel the song - get the general feel for the music you play, so that when you get better you can experiment a bit