goddamn , åkerfeldt is one ugly dude. that is a hideous avatar.

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dude, you mean 5th fret low E right?

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As far as I'm concerned the most important thing to know for starting out on soloing and theory and improvising and shit is the minor modes and their moveable patterns. It's retarded to learn a million seperate keys like A minor, B minor, G major, D locrian and so on and which notes go in them when you can just treat them as one scale with variable strating points.
For each scale there is a set pattern of half steps (1 fret) and whole steps (2 frets). Just pick your starting note and go up the scale once or twice to figure out which notes you can use in the scale. Then you can change your key by just moving that same pattern up the neck to a different staring point. For example, most of us know the E minor scale, since that's what most thrash songs are in:
------------e
------------B
------------G
0---2-------D or, going straight up the neck: 0-2-3-5-7-8-10-12
0---2---3---A
0---2---3---E
This is your E natural minor scale, now if you want say, A minor, just move up your tonic (the starting note) 5 frets to A and pretend that fret 5 is your open string. So you get:
------------e
------------B
------------G
5---7-------D or 5-7-8-10-12-13-15-17
5---7---8---A
5---7---8---E
Nothing more to it then that. This is alot easier then learning every key individually. Even if you find moveable patterns confusing this is THE easiest way to learn keys. Just practice it awhile and try out different staring points. And once you have played around with any given scale/key using this method for a while you'll know it's notes anyway just like you would if you had memorized it and it's key signature to start off.

That having been said the most important scales/patterns to learn are
Natural Minor: You use as your standard scale in most songs, it's basically an extended petatonic scale, if you know that. If you don't know the petatonic scale, just learn the natural minor. They serve the same purpose but the minor scale is more expressive.
0---2--------D
0---2---3----A or 0-2-3-5-7-8-10-12
0---2---3----E
Harmonic Minor: Used in neo-classical, and of course, regular classical music alot. It's essentially the natural minor with 1 changed note that leads into the tonic again really well. In practical use you rarely use this scale for a whole song, you just occasionally change out the one different note occasionally with it's natural minor counterpart when you want that anticipatory, "leading" effect.
1---2------D the leading tone is the 1 in this line
0---2---3--A or 0-2-3-5-7-8-11-12
0---2---3--E
Phrygian: Commonly used in flamenco and metal. It's, again, natural minor, with one changed note.
0---2------D
0---2---3--A
0---1---3--E
Locrian: Really cool for heavy "chug-chug" palm-mutted riffing, but hard to solo with. It sounds really weird. Slayer used it a fair amount. Listen to the Angel of Death solo, it's got some nice locrian runs. Metallica’s “Shortest Straw” is in this, so is a lot of death metal like dying fetus. It's the same as the Phrygian with one changed note:
0---2-------D
0---1---3---A or 0-1-3-5-6-8-10-12
0---1---3---E

And again, any of these scales can be moved anywhere on the fret board so just play around with them. Start out with natural minor and work your way down.


I hope this helps someone. If it's confusing at all, sorry, just ask any questions.

maybe if i read it 5 times then it'll sink in