When people solo, they have a few things in mind.... Their primarily thinking about the key of the song that their playing in. The key of the song is the overall note that the song is in. Here's a little trick that works most of the time when determining the key of the song: the chord that the chord progression of a song usually (9 times out of ten) starts with or ends in, is usually the key of the song. For example if a song is in the key of G, that means that I can develop melodies within the G scales, or I know that I could use the G major scale, G mixolydian scale, G pentatonic scale, etc. So remember that the key of the song is "key".
Here's another thing to keep in mind when you're soloing: Keep in mind that when someone solos, they're not hitting as many random notes within the scale as possible, however they are using a couple notes to create melodies and taking breaks between the phrases. Remember that a solo is also composed of the notes that you don't play. So take a deep breath and focus on little tiny melodies that you can make within a particular scale of a song. Don't focus on huge long runs and millions of notes during a given phrase!! Just focus on small, few note, runs. You can throw in more notes as you get better.
Refer back to the Arpeggio for the key of the song. If I'm playing many different style scales over the key of the song, if I refer back to the arpeggio of the key of the song, then I will hit notes that will interest the listener’s ear. What's an arpeggio you ask? Make a G Chord. You know, 3rd fret of the 6th string, 2nd fret of the 5th string, open 4th, open 3rd, 2nd on the 3rd fret, 1st on the 3rd fret... a regular G chord. Then play the 6th string, play the 5th, the 4th, the 3rd, all the way down to the 1st (in other words just strum the chord super slow). You've just played the arpeggio for the G chord! That’s all an arpeggio is. If you throw in notes from a given arpeggio, then you can make the listeners ear perk up and keep their attention. Try it!
Another thing you can throw in when soloing (this is really cool) is when you take the same melody that the person has been singing in the song, and play it on the guitar. This has been done in many songs. Great examples of this are Van Halen's "Higher", The Beatles "I've Just Seen a Face", Mr. Big "To be with you" and many others. It sounds really cool when you through it in.
Performing cool runs and patterns in scales is another cool thing you can mess around with while soloing. For example take the G major scale and play the 1st note, then the 3rd, then the second note in the scale, then the 4th then the 3rd, then the 5th and all the way up... see the pattern? You can also start on the 1st, go to the 4th, 2nd, then 5th, 3rd, then 6th, ya see?, there's a million of these patterns out there. Be creative come up with some. Patterns really make it more interesting instead of climbing up and down the scale... that gets boring to the ear.
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