This Schenker run.....

bingefeller

I can play the UFO song Shoot Shoot at 95% normal speed with Transcribe!, apart from these 4 bars of the solo!  I worked out the song as being approximately 148 bpm.  

Does anyone else have difficulty playing this?  

The run starts at 1.33 approximately.

The first two bars of the solo don't present too much of a problem but the next one does.  I'm not even sure that's what he's really playing as the guitar gets buried with the other instruments at that point.   I think that I have practiced this so much today that I'm getting worse at it!!  I tend to play with a lot more hammer ons and pull offs that what is transcribed here as that's the way I think Schenker would play it.  

kin

yes

nickp

i'd struggle.

I'd probably get there as I can play faster than i think but it would take some time fer sure.  nice run. 16th notes at 148 bpm sustained picking is pretty good going but as you say a lot of it sounds legato which takes some of the pressure off 

Danny1969

Assuming the songs in A as I don't have perfect pitch and no guitar to hand (But I can hear the A voicing ) the solo's all F# pentonic with some major grace notes like we use in country. It's the same style used in a million Thin Lizzy songs and this sounds half picked half hammer ons  

Nerine

I've never really checked Schenker out before, but jesus you can definitely hear Slash in that solo. 

I've read before that Slash was influenced by him. 

Clarky

Nerine said:

I've never really checked Schenker out before, but jesus you can definitely hear Slash in that solo. 

I've read before that Slash was influenced by him. 

check out the solo on the song This Kids [from Strangers in the Night]

it's wonderful

citizen68

Solo in Rock Bottom on the same (I think!) live album is a work of art too - melodic build up then BOOM!

bingefeller

Yeah the SITN album is fantastic.  Schenker is amazing on it.  Out On The Street is my favourite track and the solo is just amazing.  He starts off melodic then, again, just builds into fast blues licks mixing major and minor pentatonics.  

Out of all the UFO stuff nothing can beat his playing on SITN.  He was at his peak with UFO then.  The Michael Schenker Group stuff.....well that's an entirely different story.

Clarky

haaa… just checked it out… lovely solo that..

never tried figuring it out though..

bingefeller

FelineGuitars

That's a fast run ....heard it a million times bt following it is a task.

I tend to like his structured thought out stuff a bt more than his blazing almost by the seat of his pants solos

I love the solo in Let It Roll...

SITN is still an amazing album (one of the best ever) but I do like the MSG stuff - first 3 albums (thought Assault Attack was great) and also Save Yourself was a much underrated album.

Thankfully his recant tours have been good for the last 5 years (he went through a couple of years where I feared he wouldn't pull through.)

bingefeller

FelineGuitars said:

That's a fast run ....heard it a million times bt following it is a task.

I tend to like his structured thought out stuff a bt more than his blazing almost by the seat of his pants solos

I love the solo in Let It Roll...

SITN is still an amazing album (one of the best ever) but I do like the MSG stuff - first 3 albums (thought Assault Attack was great) and also Save Yourself was a much underrated album.

Thankfully his recant tours have been good for the last 5 years (he went through a couple of years where I feared he wouldn't pull through.)

Let it Roll is another great solo.  Very melodic and I love the doubled keyboard guitar bit.  

I've been to see him a few times in Belfast.  One of the tours was cancelled - it was the one where he stopped drinking in the middle of a tour and, I'm assuming, went into the DTs and the tour was then cancelled.  Can't remember the year....maybe 2005.  He got himself together and he seems to have been OK from then, thankfully.  

Grunfeld

bingefeller said:

I'm not even sure that's what he's really playing as the guitar gets buried with the other instruments at that point.  

If you listen to it in Transcribe, and set the Mono/Karaoke tab [in the Audio Effects & Controls window] to just the R channel it's much easier to hear what Schenker is playing.

And at first listen it's a pentatonic (with that little bluesy 7, 6, 5 on the A at the start) run up the neck from the low A (bottom E string) to the A on the 10th fret (B string). 

It's got the classic Schenker vibrato which I love to bits.  And the timing is... just Schenker. 

What a great, great song!  I would love to play this live.  (But no one would get it... because it's not "Doctor, Doctor".)

FelineGuitars

Grunfeld said:

bingefeller said:

I'm not even sure that's what he's really playing as the guitar gets buried with the other instruments at that point.  

If you listen to it in Transcribe, and set the Mono/Karaoke tab [in the Audio Effects & Controls window] to just the R channel it's much easier to hear what Schenker is playing.

Am I missing something - please explain where these settings are.....

bingefeller

Grunfeld said:

bingefeller said:

I'm not even sure that's what he's really playing as the guitar gets buried with the other instruments at that point.  

If you listen to it in Transcribe, and set the Mono/Karaoke tab [in the Audio Effects & Controls window] to just the R channel it's much easier to hear what Schenker is playing.

And at first listen it's a pentatonic (with that little bluesy 7, 6, 5 on the A at the start) run up the neck from the low A (bottom E string) to the A on the 10th fret (B string). 

It's got the classic Schenker vibrato which I love to bits.  And the timing is... just Schenker. 

What a great, great song!  I would love to play this live.  (But no one would get it... because it's not "Doctor, Doctor".)

Cheers, I'll try that....after I record my Schenker rip off March ROTM!!

Grunfeld

FelineGuitars said:

Am I missing something - please explain where these settings are.....

Main Transcribe window then click Window -> Audio Effects and Controls -> [which brings up a second window which can, if you want, always be on top]

In this second window:  click the "mono/karaoke" tab and set the radio button to "active" and (for this track) click the "Right" button.

You now have Mr Schenker giving you a solo performance without the rest of the band being so intrusive.



EDIT -- This little "audio effects and controls" window is amazing if anyone's not aware of it.  In the "misc" tab you can store all you loops and literally learn a solo, or what have you, bar by bar; adjust the pitch for dodgy old Hendrix tunings, and so on.  Great window.

bingefeller

Grunfeld said:

FelineGuitars said:

Am I missing something - please explain where these settings are.....

Main Transcribe window then click Window -> Audio Effects and Controls -> [which brings up a second window which can, if you want, always be on top]

In this second window:  click the "mono/karaoke" tab and set the radio button to "active" and (for this track) click the "Right" button.

You now have Mr Schenker giving you a solo performance without the rest of the band being so intrusive.



EDIT -- This little "audio effects and controls" window is amazing if anyone's not aware of it.  In the "misc" tab you can store all you loops and literally learn a solo, or what have you, bar by bar; adjust the pitch for dodgy old Hendrix tunings, and so on.  Great window.

Great find!  Youre a genius!

Grunfeld

bingefeller said:

Great find!  Youre a genius!

Haha!  You're welcome.  But THIS is why I rave about Transcribe so much!  This bloody window!  But I agree, it's not the most obvious thing about the program.

bingefeller

Alright I have reconfigured the run and I find it easier to play like this:

FelineGuitars

Oh sorry - didn't realise Transcribe was a software program......duh!

Sambostar

It's won't sound the same like that though, I mean not as choppy, it will sound more melodic and it will be more difficult to get the phrasing right.  Might even sound better but it won't sound like Schenker.

I always take stuff I can't do as a challenge to highlight what I can't do.

In this case I'd practice picking a plain two note per string pentatonic really fast from E to E to get used to the picking the string changes and then some repetitive rhoadsy licks and blues patterns with different notes per string and moving them up the scale to get used to picking the string intervals and patterns in that kind of '70's pentatonic style until you nail the note loudness and timing with strength and co-ordination, then you can decide whether or not to pick every note, otherwise it's a leading a horse to water.

Why I loved Randy and Quiet Riot as he really nailed the rhythmic pentatonic stuff which he basically repeated or built upon with Ozzy

A----7-5-----7-5-7-5-----7-5------7-5-7-5-----8-5-8-5

E---------7-5-----------7-5-----7-5-----------7-5----------7-5

A---------5-7-5-------------5-7-5

E----5-7--------7------5-7--------7

A----5-7-5---7

E-----------7----7

G---------------------------------------4

D----

A----7-8-7-5-7-5------7-5-------6

E--------------------7-5------7-5-----

E----5-8-5--5--------------------5

B-----------8---8-5---5-----------

G---------------------8--8-7-5-6--

E----5-8-5--5----------------------------5

B-----------8---8-5---5-8---5--------

G---------------------8-----8---8-7-5-6--

Paul gilbert has a video on rhythmic playing too that might help that might lead you away from triplet or 6 note patterns.  Here is a basic descending pattern in groups of 4 notes instead of three or six to help with the feel.  Do it all the way down to the low E and up again.

E----8-5--------5-----

B---------8-5-----8-5----8-5--------5

G-----------------------7-------7-5-----7-5

D-----------------------------------------------7

Also curious but I don't think any two guitar player phrase those basic bending a G to 7-5-5-8-5 licks the same way by instinct.

The thing for me that makes it sound Slash like is the space around holding that last bend (8-10) before the high sequence.  Actually, that is really hard to do, filling it with notes, wall to wall is far easier and sounds a lot shitter.  Stopping in the right place takes a lot of control.  People slag Slash off, but he is a master of stopping in the right places and phrasing.