HOW DO I KNOW IN WHAT TONE MY SONG IS?

Hey everybody! I would really appreciate if anybody helps me here.

I haven't been playing for very long but lately I have been able to improvise quite a bit over songs, especially songs that have great solos like 'Stairway to Heaven' or 'November Rain.' But when I got to compose my own solos I realized that I only knew how to improvise when I knew what scales certain songs were in. For example, yesterday I was fooling around with: Bm (7th fret), A (5th fret) and Em. This is a ii-i-V right? Anyway... what scales or modes can I use to solo over this progression?

Thank y'alls for any advice.

Hi

To learn all the modes, and over what progressions they can be used, is very good. For most rock and blues tunes, you can get along pretty good with the good ol' pentatonic scales, but to learn the modes opens up more of the fretboard. It makes it possible to play more interesting solos, both for rock, blues and jazz tunes. It may not sound very nice with a pentatonic over a maj7 chord, for example. For those maj7 and 7-5 chords, lydian and locrian modes can be good to learn. The moxolydian mode is one of the most common used ones, used over the dominant 7th.

Now that i've written so much, it would take too much space here explaining the modes and scales. Checkout:

http://www.guitarplayers.net/lessons/lesson08/lesson08.html

There you have a good explanation of modes and how to use them.

Hope it helps you
/Wide, Sweden

Try an a min pent scale over a bb maj7 seven chord. it's way cool...gives you that lydian sound and avoids the root note. Also try d min pent over bbmaj7.

Thank you very much you guys for your feedback... but I still feel a little bit unsure on how do I pick in what scale/mode to play a solo over a given progression. For example... as I said before, if I were playing Bm-A-Em, how do I know what scales I can use?

Play B Aeolian.

Modal inversions are E dorian, F# phrygian, G lydian, A mixolydian, Db locrian, D ionian.

There you have it!