Help me Solo :)

It sounds to me like the trouble isn't that you've learned the blues scales first, it's that you're soloing randomly.

Can you imagine a great punk solo?

If so, great - now you just need to figure out how to play it. Seriously. Listen to it in your mind, hear how the melody rises and falls. Listen for the riffs - and listen to them over and over.

Now pick up your guitar, and play the riff. Hit a wrong note? That's GOOD! Now fix it. Was the note you played too high? Too low? Too soon after the last one, too late, too loud, too soft? Fix it. Play it again.

Sooner or later you'll have that riff down, and you've taken the biggest step towards soloing well in any style - connecting your head, ears, and fingers so they work as a unit.

So what if you can't imagine a great solo?

You haven't listened enough. Put on a favorite CD and listen to one cut several times. Now play a punk chord progression, and imagine a solo being played over it. Repeat that until you start hearing lines that 'fit', then go through the steps above.

The problem with the guitar as an improvisational instrument is that it's too darn easy to learn patterns. Learn four or five fingering variations, and you've got all the 'right' notes for a key/style... but they aren't really the right notes, they're just the notes that are left when you subtract the ones that are likely to be 'wrong'.

Although that improves your chances of making a decent sounding random solo, that's really not soloing - it's just playing random notes from a smaller set. Soloing is about communicating YOUR musical ideas - so the very first step is defining what those ideas are, not looking for a magical fingering pattern.

The whole point to learning fingering patterns isn't to limit ourselves to those notes, it's to show us where the next note probably lies on the neck, and to get our fingers used to going different distances for notes. If you learn the instrument well enough to play what you hear, you'll find you don't worry about fingering patterns - they're just one step on the road.

Wow, I feel this thread is really speaking to me. I have been dealing with this same situation for awhile now. I've been working with a blues "play along" cd and I can blaze through blues patterns, hitting random notes, but thats it. It sound o.k., and random, but the "right notes." I do find myself playing the "box patterns" over and over though and I feel that I'm in the shallow side of the pool hanging onto the side when I do this. I guess it's hard to let go of the familiar (safe) zone. Now I understand that I should really listen to the cd and try to figure out a solo in my head, and then play that solo.

Thanks Noteboat.

I'm in the same boat (no pun).
I somehow fit nice notes, but it kinda sounds always the same although I go from botton to top and use kinda different rhythmics (or so I think) and dynamics, I always end up with the same notes...
Besides that, theres really no composition going on, just ideas browsing around.
I don't hit wrong notes but it's a far cry of a well structured solo.
There's a lot to learn and I just recently started (just a little excuse for myself...)

That's a good thing though, because if I were able to play symphonies I guess I'd get VEEEERY lazy in practizing, so... :wink:

I think one of the easiest ways to learn solo'ing is to first learn how to improvise a melody.

this is really easiest with a friend.

Get a buddy and sit with your backs to each other. Have him pick a key and play a short 2 bar riff. Now answer him back wtih a 2 bar riff of your own -- but it has to SOUND like it fits with what he played.

Then add a further 2 bars, and let him answer you.

It sounds easy, but it's really quite difficult at first. Once you get your ear, hand and imagination working together, however, it's really quite easy.

To turn that into a solo in a song, just take the melody line in your head as the "riff" you're answering.

I know what you guys mean. I often feel like that I am stuck behind this wall . And on the other side are great sounding solos. Every scale pattern I learn chips a brick away from that wall but it won't really take the wall down completely. I just keep telling myself to be patient and it will come. Every now and then I find a gem that helps me get closer. Thanks Notebote! Its funny how someone always asks a question that 5 people want the answer to.

Shibby

I only read CyrusOCN's question, so if this has already been said, sorry. I wouldn't exactly classify Weezer as punk rock, but the solo in some of their songs is sometimes to the tune of the lyrics in the song, or the harmony/melody. Then if you find something that goes with it and is cool then add it. Also, don't forget to use scales!! It might help vice versa if you find a cool solo, then you can kinda used that as the tone for the lyrics.

BTW IMO the new Weezer song sucks, too popish for me. 8)

I found the easiest way to break out of the box is to only use 1 strin when composing your solos. That way you are forced to think about what notes you are playing. Then after you can a resonable melody on 1 string add 1 more. Then when your really thinking about the notes you can go back to using the boxes but only as a guidline for where you can find the notes you are looking for.

Hey thanks everyone for all the help. I just got Adobe Audition set up on my computer so I can play stuff and then just listen over and over until something hits me, hopefully it'll work :)
Hey, Weezer is always poppy, Beverly Hills rocks. And yeah, Weezer is punk enough for me. Geek rock, punk, who really cares?
Thanks again everyone I'll make sure to keep all the suggestions in mind when I sit down to write some music next time.
Cya,
Cyrus