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[muso] Improvising Guitar Solos

Started by Neil, July 07, 2004, 05:09:38 PM

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Neil

This is not an area of guitar playing that I have really been bothered about up until now.  I have a very bad memory and find it terribly difficult to remember long solos from my favourite songs, so I tend not to bother and instead just work on rhythm playing.  However I want to learn how to improvise over tracks.  Last night I picked up some backing tracks which I'm going to work with, however I'm not sure how you go from a minor pentatonic scale or whatever, and transform those handful of notes into a coherent guitar solo.  

When learning a scale, should I be conciously thinking about what each and every note is, so that I know where I can jump to next?  I have a feeling that lots of guitar players have a set of licks stored in their memory banks which they just pull out to use with particular scales, is this accurate?  

I got the first Band In A Pocket set, and there is an example tab and scale here:
http://www.fivefeathers.com/TabOneForUpperE.htm

How do you get from that scale, to the fluid and enjoyable guitar lines in the example audio track?  I suppose it's time to crank up the amp and just fuck around with the scale to see what I can get out of it, but if any of you have advice then I'd love to hear it.

phoresy

I usually just fuck around for a bit and if something sounds good I'll do it again and vamp around it. Knowing the modes of the major scale is useful if you want to work around set progressions, but the most useful thing I've ever been told is if you play a note and it sounds 'wrong' just move up or down a fret and it will usually fit in OK.

Almost Yearly

Quote from: "phoresy"...if you play a note and it sounds 'wrong' just move up or down a fret and it will usually fit in OK.
Heheh, like it.

Me old guitarist used to talk very entertainingly about building up the courage to venture out of his foxhole and trying not to get the top of his head shot off. Of course, being a one guitar band, the rest of us lived for such decapitations, when he'd come scambling back to chord land with blood in his eyebrows. Fucker deserved it, going off and leaving us all naked like that, frantically trying to provide cover for minutes at a time.

El Unicornio, mang

I'd agree with phoresy. Personally I've never taken the time to look at scales. I perhaps should have, but honestly haven't really found that I've needed to know them. When doing solo's and the like, I just get an idea of a starting note, then just build it up from there, thinking in terms of melody rather than just lots of notes (some guitarists, especially the 80s hair bands, tend to just play shitloads of notes really fast, which I've never been into, I prefer to have a solo which is memorable and melodic)
Oasis songs are quite a good starting point. The solo on Live Forever is nice and melodic and relatively easy to learn:

http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/o/oasis/live_forever-tab.shtml

http://www.mysongbook.com/?msbp=eng%2Ctab%2Ctab_list&keyword=live+forever

Metallica also have some good ones, although some of them are ridiculously hard to play.

I'm not sure where the whole solo thing came about, I think Jimi Hendrix, although he was obviously fantastic, is guilty of inspiring lots of egotistical lads with big hair to think "Hmmm, we need a bit after the second chorus where I can show everyone how good I am at playing guitar". You don't always need solo's. The Smiths, for example, never had guitar solo's, and Johnny Marr is probably my fave guitarist of all time. If it fits the song, do it, but just doing it because "it's time for the solo" seems a bit silly to me.
It also has a lot to do with coke. Notice John Squire going from lovely melodic guitar parts on the first album to 6-minute fretwanking on Second Coming

Vermschneid Mehearties

QuoteNotice John Squire going from lovely melodic guitar parts on the first album to 6-minute fretwanking on Second Coming

He was great in The Seahorses. Just my opinion.

Whenever I write solos, they're usually derived from scales, or appregios. Just experiment, and discard duff notes. Too much theory impedes creativity in my opinion.

Almost Yearly

I like the solos which are just backed by the same chord patterns as the rest of the song, only the guitarist manages to create a whole other song-within-a-song, by creating melodies - not necessarily wanksome - which work differently with the chords than wot the song's hitherto established melodies do. I am not a guitarist. I will leave now in shame.

I Am I'm Me by Twisted Sister is not a good example of this.

phoresy

Unicorn's got a good point. Lots of solos are there for the sake of it and contribute only to the guitaist's ego and not the song. Obviously they are an integral part of lots of instrumental work, but then you've got proper virtuosi(?) who should be able to structure solo as a melodic component of the song, the problem was when this started getting transferred into to all songs, even when it didn't fit.

It could be more useful look at forming solos by elaborating on the chords in the song, i.e. selectively fingerpicking strings in each chord to formn a melody, hammering on and pulling off extensions (e.g. 4ths and 9ths) or putting the odd slide up and down into chords.  There are a couple of good examples of these types of 'solos', I just can't think of any off hand (sorry). I'm pretty sure they're common in folk acoustic work.

Edit: Pretty much like AY said.

Vermschneid Mehearties

plural of o...err...virtuosa...I think.

A Passing Turk Slipper

When I play solos I normally just use the notes in the few scales I have learned, if you know a few solos then you should be able to take different sections from them and fiddle around with those. I found learning the solo in Little Wing to be quite good for this, it's got loads of nice bits in it to use while improvising. Just learn a couple of scales and play what sounds good. I'd say just learn a basic scale and muck around with it in E to Downtown which is on Mirrorball, improvising to that I find is pretty easy. I don't really enjoy that kind of playing though, my brother is always playing solos and I just find them boring after a while and would rather work on some nice fingerpicking or something.

Sam

I direct your attention to this excellent man's site:

www.fareed.com

and in particular his sterling articles on playing scales, chords etc that cut through the snobbery of jazz and theory over-kill.

http://www.fareed.com/lessons.html

Theory is useful but not as important as having a good ear (i.e. good relative picth). Obviously, add the theory to the good ear and you have it all. After all, there are certain short-cuts that theory provides which would take a long time to discover by ear.

Treat theory as your friend. It's really not complicated; in fact it's highly logical and intuitive. There are a lot of people who claim that theory hinders your creativity. That's tosh. The more you know, the more you can apply, and that knowledge is only as limiting as the imagination of the person. It's as simple as that.

There are a lot of snobs who use theory as a means to feel superior to other musicians, to scare them with their knowledge. These people are idiots and are to blame for scaring decent musicians away from potential insights and pleasures that theory can provide.

Just use your ear and don't be afraid. If something sounds good, it is.

9

I consider myself a decent guitar player but have absolutely no concept of 'scales' or 'notes' whatsoever. I just play what sounds right and I think that's a pretty good rule of thumb to be honest.

Quote from: "Neil"should I be conciously thinking about what each and every note is, so that I know where I can jump to next?

I think the idea is to get to a point where jumping to a certain note becomes instinctive so i reckon the best way is to just keep praticing solos and learning what works and what doesn't. I don't have any 'licks' stored in my head, but I know some people do. Personally I prefer to improvise by just feeding off whatever chords are going on underneath. Plus this often sounds a lot better as there can be some hesitation going on (in a good, exciting way) and the listener can pick up on this.

Mind you, uber-scales knowledge and devestating finger speed can have their place in great pop/rock songs (See the smashing pumpkins' Siamese Dream)

Hope that makes some sense.

Gazeuse

Some people have an intuitive approach to this and will just be able to play notes that sound right. However, the actual mechanics of finding notes which fit in a solo can be described by scales and arpeggios.

The art of a good solo (And a good melody) is to use tensions and resolves (Phoresey's sliding up or down a fret on a bloomer is on the mark there!!!). Some people can do this without any training, like I said, while others have to work at scales and modes.

There are plenty of good books on the subject, none of which come to mind at the moment (I think the ones I know of are jazz oriented), but I could think them up if you want. (Don Mock comes to mind).

Frinky

Edit:

re-post tomorrow when I make sense, sorry.

session9

I'm not a very good guitarist, but I know what I like, so that's what I play. If it sounds good, play it.. Who cares how many notes per second it is or what exotic scales you are able to employ if the end result is something that only beardy chin-strokers can appeciate?

Pretentious guitar solos just piss me off. Give me some Slash any day.

(Sorry about this post. It say nothing of real value, and nobody is going to learn anything new from it. I was just bored. Please apply this apology to any post I may have made in the past, or may make in the future.)

Neil

OK...thanks to those who have posted helpful replies...that fareed.com site looks as if it has some good stuff on it which I will work through.

Now then, what's the point in looking at how bad guitar solos can be?  I am interested in becoming a well-rounded guitar player, and that means working on everything.  Instead of just going on about 80's hair metallers and their 500bpm solos, think instead of how some of the best songs ever made have emotive solos that enhance the songs they're attached to.

Here's some songs that you can (re)listen to if you want proof:

The Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing, While My Guitar Gently Sleeps
Frank Zappa - Zoot Allures
Michael Jackson - Beat It
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Parliament Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Alice In Chains - Man In The Box
Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name
Guns N' Roses - November Rain (some Slash there for session9)
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb, Time, Money...
Eric Clapton - Cocaine
Black Sabbath - War Pigs, Crazy Train
Derek & The Dominoes - Layla ( I recently got the 20th Anniversary sessions set and it's quite simply amazing.)
Led Zep - Stairway To Heaven
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Cream - Crossroads
The Eagles - Hotel California
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird
Led Zep - Heartbreaker, Since I've Been Loving You and Whole Lotta Love (for Frinky.)
And that's without even getting started on Hendrix!

Frinky

Quote from: "Neil"Led Zep - Stairway To Heaven

Don't like that one. :) Blur's This Is A Low uses the same solo principal, the overlaying of three "lead" tracks that come to the fore in various places (go get that song now if you've never heard it, the solo is amazing.

For Zep, I'd reccomend Since I've Been Loving you... even at the time of recording, it was an off-the-cuff solo. It's a little messy... but the feeling is there, and it's astounding.

Edit... best Who solo for me would be Bell Boy, I think. One of the best chord changes ever in there, too.

Neil

I'll queue Bell Boy up, I can't remember it offhand.  I'm just relistening to the solo in Won't Get Fooled Again at the mo :)    Ooh, someone on Soulseek has the "Quadrophenia Demos", I'll be grabbing those.  Shit, can't believe I left "Bell Bottom Blues" by Derek & The Dominoes of that list, awesome song and a very emotive solo.

El Unicornio, mang

A few of my faves:
The Stranglers - Golden Brown (short, but absolutely perfect, and a bugger to play properly)
The Stone Roses - Tears (a couple of good solo's in this track)
The Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection (the only real solo on the album, finishes the last half of the song off nicely)
Pink Floyd - Animals (the album, there's loads of good guitar doodlings on there)

Goldentony

and some faves of mine:

dead kennedys - police truck




yes thats about it

phoresy

Best solos I can think of off the top of my head:
Frank Zappa - Any Kind of Pain  (from Broadway the Hardway)
        "              - all of Watermelon In Easter Hay

And to show fast solos can be melodic
Ozzy Osbourne (or Randy Roads) - Mr Crowley

Frinky

Quote from: "Neil"I'll queue Bell Boy up, I can't remember it offhand.  I'm just relistening to the solo in Won't Get Fooled Again at the mo :)    Ooh, someone on Soulseek has the "Quadrophenia Demos", I'll be grabbing those.  Shit, can't believe I left "Bell Bottom Blues" by Derek & The Dominoes of that list, awesome song and a very emotive solo.

Won't Get Fooled... perhaps some of the best guitar playing put on record if you ask me. I sound like a right cunt saying this, but it's what Townshend doesn't play... the pregnant pauses/sheer whack of slammed open chords is incredibly exciting. He was a stunning player in his day.

I can rip and upload a live version of Bell Boy if you like. And the Blur song, if need be...

Gazeuse

Two of my faves...

Allan Holdsworth - Shadows Of... From Gazeuse by GONG.

And for sheer prog barmyness, Greg Lake - Karn Evil 9 by ELP (Not improv).

Vermschneid Mehearties

Manic Street Preachers- Faster and Motorcycle Emptiness[

I won't mention Santana just yet. The only person I know who I can talk about guitars in depth with thinks Santana is a prick who just dillies with scales.

Frinky

Quote from: "Vermschneid Mehearties"...thinks Santana is a prick who just dillies with scales.

Funny, that.

sproggy

Quote from: "Frinky"Won't Get Fooled... perhaps some of the best guitar playing put on record if you ask me...

Keith Moon was no slouch either, the drum solo in the extended version is something to behold.

Personally I always turn to David Gilmour for pure emotional yet simple* solos.




*still haven't licked that 5 fret bend in 'Sorrow' and probably never will.