Help me up my soloing game

monquixote

viz said:

Monkey's Onqule has widdle in it!

It's quite an old track back from when I was younger and played a lot more

viz

monquixote said:

viz said:

Monkey's Onqule has widdle in it!

It's quite an old track back from when I was younger and played a lot more notes.

finished for you.

Danny1969

@viz nice playing and good example

I don't ever think in terms of modes or scales, even though I know em. I tend to want to make a statement that's expressive, so it's more the execution of the notes than the scale for me. Lots of bends, pre bends, harmonics, use fingers as well as pick etc. Even the humble pentonic can sound convincing and soulful if you can get enough expression into it. 

Always know what chords are under the solo cos  that's your road map and every note you land on has to be in symphony with them 

monquixote

I like to think it's because I have more taste now, but I think the reality is that I used to practice a lot more

Roland

Nick. You've got the important techniques nailed: bends, vibrato etc. It sounds as if what you're asking about is note choice outside of the minor pentatonic. 

What I'd recommend is three steps:

1.  adding just three notes initially: 2nd to the minor pentatonic, minor third and flattened seventh to the major scale (which makes it the mixolydian). If you practice playing these then your fingers will soon remember where they sit on the fret board. (You may already know these, so ignore me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs)

2.  Adding the 6th. There are two of them. In the Am scale they correspond to F and F#. Both do different things to the sound. Theory has names for the modal scales they produce, but what's important is how they sound.

3.  Thinking about how these "new" notes sit against the chord. Viz gave the example of a "linear" solo to Mustang Sally, based on scales. Try playing using just the chord notes, plus the minor third and flattened seventh. 

viz

Thanks '69 and yep the pentatonic is fine - plenty of feel to be gained within its 5 notes. My solo is mixa or dorian depending on whether you think I'm playing major or minor (i squeeze the 3rds), but quite a lot of the time I'm playing pure penta, just trying to include lots of different techniques like Mr. 69 says.

JayGee

Speaking as someone who's barely competent with Ye Olde Pentatonicce my personal "secret weapon" for not boring the pants off both myself and the audience is phrasing.

You can (in my oh-so-very humple opinion, and trust me I'm very, very humble indeed in these parts...) get a surprising amount of mileage out of a few licks by just kind of echoing what the singer has been doing and kind of tweaking the timing a bit to create some kind of conversational feel.

mike_l

monquixote said:

In my last band I was playing in a gold bow tie and braces

And had a guitar to cover my modesty.....

close2u

@monquiote and your OP

places I know where you can get some fantastic tips :

Andrew Wasson on youtube:

mellowsun

For soloing over a static dominant 7 chord, I find using min7 (or minor with maj7) arpeggios starting on the 5th can work well as a proxy for the mixolydian mode from the root, and avoids the sound of the root being targetted too often. E.g. for E7, use licks based around Bm7 or Bm/maj7.  Using the maj7 of Bm arp gives you a bluesy flat5 against the E7, which can sound good. Fm pentatonic can also work.

Cop licks from well known tunes. E.g. for E7, the intro lick from 'So what' starting on B sounds good, but then use it to go into something else.

Playing something in octaves, Wes Montgomery style, can work well over a static dom7 chord.

viz

On the dominant (V) chord try this, it's awesome. Go up a semitone and play the melodic minor. In fact, if you're playing blues in E, B is the dominant, so go to the 7th fret, up an octave to the 4th string 9th fret, that's a B; then go up a semitone, put your first finger on the 10th fret, get ready to play, and try this scale:

10, 12, 13 (4th string)
10, 12, 13 (3rd string)
10, 12, 13 (2nd string)
10, 11, 13 (1st string) (NOTE THE 11!)

Then back down again. You can do it very fast. It's an approximation of the melodic minor. At the bottom of that scale again you have to finish off by sliding down one more semitone, back onto the B. The whole run should be done very fast, up and down once, within the time the B dominant chord is playing. It's a great effect.

digitalscream

It's just occurred to me - one other thing I tend to do when writing (as opposed to improvising) a solo is to listen through the track I'm going to be playing over and split it into sections in my mind, thinking "slow-slow-fast-slow-fast-fast" etc. Basically, it's just working out a rough structure for it; I tend to go with whatever my first instinct is, rather than over-think it.

At that point, I'm thinking less about the notes and more about the overall feel of how it's going to be when playing it. When I start putting notes in there, the first section is always the hardest; subsequent sections tend to lead naturally on from it, especially when you already know whether it's going to be fast or slow (limitation is the mother of invention etc).

midiglitch

I'm no Viz, but when I'm writing a solo which needs to be 'interesting' there's a couple of things which work for me:

-Use (part of) the vocal or other melodic hook as the jumping off point, or ending point for the solo.

-Introduce an effect pedal and play to it (delay is great as it rewards slow playing like mine!)

-Find a note that is 'outside' and work with it.  We've just literally finished our first album and I was listening to it this morning.  There are 11 tracks and on 7 of them I use phrases which you would have to classify as belonging to the harmonic minor or phrygian dominant scales (I don't think in terms of scales, but I know a few.)  Turns out I have a fondness for the major seventh against the minor chord (or the flat second against the dominant, depending on where you're standing)! Sometimes the solo will demand that the chord underneath be replaced because its more interesting.  we do this a lot - changing the 3 chord from minor to major.

-I saw an interview with Brian May where he said he always tries to sing the solo first, then play it - rather than let the fingers come up with it, as the fingers tend to be fairly predictable.  That's probably why there are more of his solos mentioned in the 'best solos in pop songs' thread than any one else.  I try to do the same, or sometimes let the fingers do their thing and record it, then on hearing it back I can hear what it needs to do instead.

Of course, all this is underpinned by playing for the song, playing the changes etc...

viz

Great to see you yesterday M-H and your playing sounded great, even on my widdle machine! Enjoy the jazz constructs

monquixote

viz said:

Great to see you yesterday M-H and your playing sounded great, even on my widdle machine! Enjoy the jazz constructs

Cheers Viz 

As ever it was good to enjoy your widdling prowess and your sherry.

Jalapeno

Static Dom7 - heaven ! You can play absolutely anything !  Even the Maj7 in passing.

Just resolve it back to the root, 3rd or b7 to finish.

Clarky tip - play min Pentatonic up 2 frets for Myxolydian - you already know the fingering and licks !

EricTheWeary

For the least technical answer ever: novelty.

TBH use all the scales you like but it still sounds like poodlepoodlepoodlepoodlepoodle to 90% of punters. They will, however, remember the solo where you used a wah ( not if you use a wah on everything, of course), the solo where you did tapping, the solo where you did crazy tremolo picking, the one with the rockabilly licks, the one where you used a slide,etc,etc.

All to be done with the best possible taste of course...
|)

Does that get me fired from a guitar forum?
:-O

carlos

We can wear out our typing fingers listing every combination of scales and arpeggios to use over each chord but I think it's more helpful to give you some general advice.

- develop your ears, so you can hear it in your head before you play it. This is definitely something you can practice and it will help a lot when soloing. If out of inspiration, use tunes we all know, for instance try playing Greensleeves from memory. Sing it out loud or in your head and then try to play it. If you can do that consistently that's a lot of soloing situations covered. 

- don't play too much! When I started playing over changes I tried to do something over every chord and messed it up. Even when I got it right it was too busy. Silence is also a sound you can use.

- use a full range of articulation when playing notes. So instead of just doing note then bend, you can also do pre-bends, slides to and from scale notes, etc. Do 1/4 bends, do silly 2 step bends... and then vibrato on top.

- if you're not very fast and don't want to spend hours developing speed, remember that phrases that throw off the listener sound faster because they're unpredictable. So on the turnaround chord play a moderate tempo diminished or whole-tone run and it will sound fast.

- if you can't hear a scale, don't play it. Some of us know too many scales as diagrams and not as sounds.

- I think rhythm is as important as note choice, but that's a very personal opinion. It's easier to play outside by stepping outside the established rhythm of the song than it is by note choice.

- it's nice to learn arpeggios in several different combinations, so 121, 22, 1111, 211, etc but if you can't be arsed combining chords and scales is an easy way to arpeggiate. For instance, combining a 9 chord shape with the minor penta and playing one or two notes per string sounds pretty cool and more interesting than a straight scale run.

mike_l

EricTheWeary said:

For the least technical answer ever: novelty.

TBH use all the scales you like but it still sounds like poodlepoodlepoodlepoodlepoodle to 90% of punters. They will, however, remember the solo where you used a wah ( not if you use a wah on everything, of course), the solo where you did tapping, the solo where you did crazy tremolo picking, the one with the rockabilly licks, the one where you used a slide,etc,etc.

All to be done with the best possible taste of course...
|)

Does that get me fired from a guitar forum?
:-O

Not fired. But you do have to record and let us all hear exactly what you mean........

not_the_dj

EricTheWeary said:

For the least technical answer ever: novelty.

TBH use all the scales you like but it still sounds like poodlepoodlepoodlepoodlepoodle to 90% of punters. They will, however, remember the solo where you used a wah ( not if you use a wah on everything, of course), the solo where you did tapping, the solo where you did crazy tremolo picking, the one with the rockabilly licks, the one where you used a slide,etc,etc.

All true.

I'm dreading the day another guitarist come up to me at a gig and says "you really shoud learn a second scale, all your solos are the same.."

(hangs head in shame)