In learning how to play the guitar, or any other instrument for that matter, there are two fundamental concepts that I like to call 'the two Great Divides'. The first one is called 'Divide and Conquer', and it is applied when learning exercises or new pieces of music. Basically, it boils down to dividing the piece in small bits, learn every bit separately and then putting it all together. It also means that you have to isolate the parts that you find more difficult to play so that you can practice them separately (as opposed to try to play through the whole piece of music and stumbling always at the same point). Anyway, this concept has already been beaten to death in many articles available online, so I will not bore you any further on that.
I would like, instead, to concentrate on the second divide, called 'Divide and Multiply', that has more to do with creativity than practice. It consists in taking a music piece apart, much like you did for the first Divide, but then you put the pieces back together in a new, creative way. You can apply this either to whole songs (but this is a topic too big for a single article) or to single licks and soloing ideas. The second Divide is a procedure that has received far less online coverage than the first Divide, but it is not less important - in fact it is vital if you want to develop your own voice. One recent example of the second Divide in action is an article from my friend Paul Tauterouff, showing a simple yet powerful concept in lick building.
I can go on and on describing the second Divide in abstract, I think instead that it is more fruitful if I show you some examples. In the following I will take a single 5-notes scale sequence and show you how much mileage you can get out of a single simple idea. Of course, the variations and licks that I tab here are not the only ones possible: in fact I am pretty sure that after you finish reading this article you will come up with some new variation I did not think of.
IMPORTANT: most of this article will not make any sense unless you try the licks on your guitar!
Each of these three options has the accents fall on different rhythmic places, making the sequence feeling different. If you want to hear the difference, I prepared a video on my website where I play all the licks in this article and show some tricks on how to nail the different rhythmic divisions.
These licks lend naturally to be played in legato instead than picking every note. The muting of unwanted strings is tricky, though. In the free video I prepared I give some tips on how to play the last example cleanly in legato.
That's all for the first part, in the second part we are going to look at the same 5-note sequence in less standard situations. In the meantime, go forth and come up with some interesting licks on your own!