How to craft melodic guitar solos?

Simple!

Play in accordance with the chords. The most straight forward method involves utilizing chord tones – Notes that correspond to the current chord you are playing on. In the video example, I am only using one scale – Bb Major Scale. But, the difference is I am focused on emphasizing a chord tone of each chord as my starting point before laying down any licks or phrases.

Verse : Over these first 8 bars, I am building my phrases around the 3rd of each chord.

Chorus : Building phrases around the 5th of each chord. What follows after, is a combination of both 3rd, 5ths and playing whatever.

Targeting chord tones isn’t just useful for keeping your phrases melodic. It allows you to be CONSISTENTLY melodic regardless of the music you play over. The best melodic guitar players like Andy Timmons, Marcos Sfogli, Dan Huff and Steve Lukather approach their soloing with targeting chord tones in mind.

Hopefully this sheds some light on how to deploy your scales and licks. Using the correct scales are only half the equation. Playing what is required per chord, is the secret.