Hi guys!
I've been practicing soloing for the last 2 months with my guitar teacher, which has been very fruitful, but there's still something missing. I've been learning and correcting my technique a lot, getting very fluid hammer-ons and pull-offs, vibrato, proper silencing of strings so you don't get that muddy sound from strings that keep on ringing.
There's still one issue, that's also been touched upon by my teacher:
I'm too focused on my technique, forgetting the music.
This obviously isn't good, and it's even worse when I don't have someone playing with me :oops: . I pretty much keep running up and down my pentatonic scale following the "right" notes and bending on all the "right" places. It makes my playing quite boring, actually. There's no "real" variation in what I'm doing, and I often find myself starting to race over my notes to make up for this. I haven't really played by ear, so this might be part of the issue.
I've read the articles on Guitarnoise and I think they're a great help (the Tom Hess one was very interesting, for example), but I'm still a bit lost. I just learned to fluidly get pinch harmonics, but once again I'm using them to cover up my lack of original playing. I can easily improvise a song when playing chords (including singing), so I think the real issue is being too tense and focused, and holding on too tightly to the things I've learned. :cry:
What would I want from you guys?
- How did you get over this issue if you had it? I'm working on it with my teacher, and it's improving (Switching volume, leaving pauses, ...) but I'd like to work on it by myself too due to winter break.
- Do you have any examples? I could probably learn from anything you guys have (licks would also be nice), an it could illustrate things a bit more.
- How can I get my playing more varied when playing by myself? Experienced guitarists can seem to fill a room when playing (and not due to a flurry of notes) but I seem to get that hollow feeling.
If you have any other advice, whether it has to do with attitude (half of playing guitar seems to be!) or musical knowledge: anything's fine and I'll try it all. I really appreciate all the help I can get, thanks guys! :D
I'm too focused on my technique, forgetting the music.
Stop playing so many notes per measure. Limit yourself to one or two. Study Neil Young's lead on Cinnamon Girl, he was a master of the one note solo.
S l o w D o w n until you STOP focusing on technique and start making music.
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
Moonrider's right about where to put your focus. It sounds like you want to be concentrating on phrasing and phrasing is much more about rhythm than notes.
Phrasing is one area where listening to vocalists and other instrumental soloists can be very helpful. Guitarists tend to play all over the place because they can while other musical instruments often need to pause to breathe in order to play. Try improvising a solo over a backing track or even your favorite songs using your voice instead of a guitar and you'll get a good idea as how phrasing should be as natural as breathing.
As you've noted, we've a lot of lessons here at Guitar Noise on this subject. You might want to try some of the "Turning Scales into Solos" exercises, as well as many of the others that deal more with the idea of phrasing rather than focusing on technique.
And be patient. This isn't as easy as it seems it should be! You'll get there.
Peace
Thanks guys, I'll be sure to give it a shot!
The voice thing really does help, I'd forgotten about it completely but my teacher did make me do it too. I'll try to do something like that and see how it goes. I'll read some more articles and try to implement it in my playing. Probably have some backing tracks lying around here somewhere too so i'll give that a go too.
