Self-accompanied guitar solos

Branshen

I intend on adding some new ideas to my playing when accompanying a solo singer. Any recommendations?

This is incredible but waaaaay beyond my capabilities. 

Megii

Are you thinking in a broadly jazz kind of vein, as in the clip above @Branshen? I play in a jazz duo with a lady singer - fortunately for me, she plays bass also, which takes some of the pressure off, but we have also done a few things with just the guitar accompaniment. For me, the toughest bit is when a guitar solo is required - just a big expanse of bars to fill, and you've just got to come up with something, arrgh! - I generally come up with some ideas in advance tbh.

I appreciate Julian Lage is brilliant, but I would say that he's largely thinking in terms of chord shapes above (of course he knows quite a lot of them) and then embellishing - it's often possible to put little snatches of the melody in, or other little phrases. Also you can connect the bass notes to get a bass line going, or alternate root to 5th sometimes, with the bass note - especially if the root is on the 5th string, the 5th will be on the 6th string at the same fret. JL does that occasionally above if fact. He puts the odd single note run in as well - that's something I could well do to work on myself - but I guess you can build up a repertoire of suitable ideas for that.

Maybe a bit old school, depending on what you want, but in our duo, we've nicked quite a lot of stuff from Julie London's 50s duo recordings with Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts. Well actually there was also a bass player on those sessions, but most of it works with just guitar and vocal.

Cry Me A River is the really famous one, but all the other tracks are well worth seeking out.

Branshen

I wasn't thinking specifically jazz but the jazz guitarists are very good at doing it. Great tips. I'll give the "alternate 5th bass note" idea a try to spice things up. I dabbled a bit in bossa so it shouldn't be too hard to implement. 

Thanks for the track. The little guitar noodle at the beginning and the end are very tasteful. 

frankus

There are a few inspirations I'd draw from, Tuck and Patti is a given:



And Joe and Ella (start around 30 mins in)

Branshen

@frankus the Joe and Ella recordings, I am familiar with, but the Tuck and Patti one is new to me. Thanks for that. Tuck in the video looks like a young jazzy Yngwie  )

frankus

he's a funny looking elf-like chap, his Niece is the same