Solo Troubles

it's just simply harder to play other peoples' music, as far as I can tell.

My advice would be to learn some licks first. Don't get caught up in full solos; they are just several phrases and/or licks put together. There are several common blues licks which appear in pretty much every blues, blues rock, rock, metal, etc. solo ever recorded. Try to learn the theory behind the changes in a I IV V blues shuffle, then play notes accordingly. That's all ZZ Top and whoever is/are doing.

Try a BB King tune. A lot of his stuff, like "The Thrill is Gone" is played slowly enough to be able to learn relatively quickly, while simultaneously digesting why the notes he plays work with the chords he's playing over.

Have fun with it! :D

Matt

Youre not being patient enough. Copying a master guitarists solos, aint easy buddy. Try tab. If your fingers work, then there is no reason why you cant nail a solo with practice. Its that simple.

The way I was taught when I was learning lead was

1 - listen to the record billions of times

2 - break the solo down into phrases

3 - count the number of notes in each phrase and any particular features

4 - try nailing the first and last notes in each phrase

5 - listening again, work out whether the next note in the phrase is up or down from where you are now

6 - rinse, spin, repeat until the neighbours have you served with an ASBO hee hee

What you get left with is a piece of paper that reads "X phrases, the first note of the first phrase is Y and the last note is Z and there are 17 notes going up up down up down down up down down etc in between, and the last bar is all triplets"

Best,

A :-)

it's just simply harder to play other peoples' music, as far as I can tell.

That is true.
Have you tried playing it real slow? If you cant get it perfect slow (phrasing, timing, fingering, not hesitating etc), then your not gonna get it right at higher speed. Practice slow and build up. Also as people said, it does help to familiarize yourself with that guitarists style n licks, to the point where you can mimic their style through improvising. Maybe your also trying to learn too much at once. Take one section at a time and get each right before moving on - do you really need to rush through it?
If there are no technical barriers to these solos then the reason your struggling is because of one or all the learningpracticing issues iv mentioned.

Try a BB King tune. A lot of his stuff, like "The Thrill is Gone"

That's the song that got me into liking him.

:D

The way I was taught when I was learning lead was

1 - listen to the record billions of times

2 - break the solo down into phrases

3 - count the number of notes in each phrase and any particular features

4 - try nailing the first and last notes in each phrase

5 - listening again, work out whether the next note in the phrase is up or down from where you are now

6 - rinse, spin, repeat until the neighbours have you served with an ASBO hee hee

What you get left with is a piece of paper that reads "X phrases, the first note of the first phrase is Y and the last note is Z and there are 17 notes going up up down up down down up down down etc in between, and the last bar is all triplets"

Best,

A :-)

That's a pretty good method. I have to start attempting to transcribe stuff....

Kind of hard to add anything to what Alan wrote.

You might try dialing your amp and guitar to sound like the guitarist lead your trying duplicate. That helps to bring out the tone and dynamic's of the solo. If their tuned to E flat or something else tune to what they are.

Joe

I have both learnt solos and made them up, there are certains songs I gave up on learning note for note a while ago (Voodo Child) but also songs that I have learn't pretty much note for note (Another Brick in the wall). Sometimes it's just fine to make a solo up, or at least add a few notes here and there that are not in the record, no one will notice if you're a fairly strong player. I find it exciting to make a solo up on the spot, it pushes me as a guitar player and it means that I don't have to sit about for hours repeating the same segment of a record again and again. Sometimes getting the feel and playing from your heart is the best way, unless you don't feel experienced enough to do so.

P.S the reason many guitarists I've read about write their own music is because they struggled to copy other peoples, it's not always a bad thing it means you have to develop your own style.

Learning solos is a difficult task for most guitarists.

What songs have you tried?
It may depend on the song - some solos use advanced techniques that might present a technical challenge, such as extreme finger stretching, or 7-string guitars, tremolo or whammy bars, special effects - distortion/octave/delay/echo/reverse etc.
Some guitarists have a difficult time reproducing their own solos!

The best thing is to use something that slows down the music, such as Transcribe software, or the Tascam Guitar Trainer. In the old days, we would use a tape recorder with a variable power supply. Lowering the voltage slows down the speed, but also changes the pitch. The software and guitar trainer is nice because they compensate for that.

There are some great educational books that have transcriptions of the solos, CD's with the solos played at slow speed, and backing tracks with the vocals and guitar parts removed. Total Guitar magazine has this in each issue. I have noticed, however, that some book/CD's are much better than others, so it might be better to see if your local guitar store has some.

>>but cant convert anything into my amp.

Is this a problem with guitar gear?
There's two issues - lower quality gear sometimes doesn't let you get great sounds, and higher quality gear can be difficult to control.

There might also be some issues with listening ... both to yourself as you play and to the band. For the former, self-consciousness can be difficult to overcome. It's a mental state, which is why lead guitarists often have attitude problems (for example, Ted Nugent). The latter brings up issues of timing and rhythm.

You can also get "lost" in a song if you're not completely familiar with song structure (music theory). This shows up when the solo starts and you're not ready. It's also difficult to stomp on the footswitches at the right time, which makes a self-consciousness even worse. Many pro musicians have someone backstage that does this for them.

I think you're at a very important stage of development ...
- playing along with recorded music
- playing it well by yourself
- playing with a backing track
- practicing with the band (rehearsals)
- the actual performance - live onstage

Thanks for all your responses guys.

I'm happy with my gear, so I don't think that thats the problem.
I'm also tryed slowing it down, but that almost makes it harder for me.

The solo's I have been trying to learn
Cheap Sunglasses - ZZTop
Freddie King - Going Down (The entire song is lead, with the rythem being played by a piano)
Jethro Tull - Aqualung

They all seem like decently easy songs to learn, so I don't understand why I'm having trouble.

G3 (Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai) do going down which I have on DVD and I learn't that version of the song, I'm just about to download the Freddie King version but if its similar to G3's version then I think it's fairly easy to sing and play because the riff is just the melody line. I don't know about the original version though.

Freelicks.net has a good selection of video lessons of solos, each broken down into sections that are played slowed down and with accompanying tab. They might not be the exact songs you want, but just learning a new solo in that manner can give you a good insight into how to break them up into easily-learnable segments and stitch it back together into a solo. Worth a shot :)

Thanks for the link chords, i'll look at that once I'm done posting. :)