constructing a solo

[Moshe]

I was trying to think of a way to make my solos sound decent.

Sometimes when I try to improvise I just cant make the whole thing sound good but there are usually sections that I like and others that are just bad.

So what about playing over some changes 6-7 times and try to play something different each time. Then just take out the sections that work and try to construct a solo out of those.

It’s something that you HAD improvised and now it is a solo that you practiced.


Any other advice?

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Are you recording these solos or playing them live?

 

[Moshe]

Are you recording these solos or playing them live?

For recording purposes...

 

[Tone2TheBone]

I whistle what lead lines I want to play outloud sometimes and combine that with stuff I already know and if I find that groove it falls into place good.

 

[Lev]

singing or humming along while your playing can help I think. The challenge with improvising is to try not just play the notes of scales/shapes in a different order - that tends not to sound so musical. Singing a melody as you play and trying to create a 'hook' in your solo can help break away from the scales/patterns that your fingers naturally reach for. When you establish a hook line, repeating it an octave higher with some subtle changes can help. But it's not easy, I'm just aspiring to get there myself.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Great thread! Could be a sticky candidate as more weigh in!

I am just trying to explore this myself, in my own newbieish way. Trying to sing along with the guitar and/or trying to play simple melodies I know (Thanks SpudSteve) are helping me to at least play something other than just a scale up and down. Glad to know how you guys are attacking it.

 

[Jimi75]

Goos one Moshe!

I think solos undergo the same changes as songs do. The way they come out depends strongly on your current mood. Sometime you are more sensitive so you might concentrate strongly on melodies and so on. The good thing about this is that when you listen to your solo later on you can exactly determinate in which mood you were.

Every player has its stlye so that you definitely find certain self-repeating criteria.

Singing or humming is a good way, but every guitarist suffers from one disease which is called the "I can not lay down the guitar and concentrate for a minute on the melody". We like to solo to loops and it needs a high level of discipline to work a solo out! It took me a long time to understand this.

As you described, you improvise and record yourself and later on there are parts that you like and parts that you dislike. That is just a normal thing. Hearing yourself play is a wonderful thing. Most of the things you play you will only realize when listening back to your recording. Of course you will then figure out that there were some cool parts.

I personally like those beautiful ideas that pop out on a first take. My approach is to keep them and to listen back to them. Then I start working them out, practice those phrases and rerecord them let us call this working off the rough edges.

Constructing a solo for me is chosing a mood or realizing the mood I am in. Figuring out if I will be satisfied by playing melodiy lines or if I need some shred in the solo to let to unleash the beast. What type of music am I soloing to? Shred over blues, Metal over pop doesn't really work for me.

A very important thing is the choice of guitar sound you make. This will strongly influence your playing.

Take yout time and don't push yourself. Do it step by step. A method I use is to set milestones. I do not automatically start at the beginning at the solo. Sometimes I feel a part of the solo fits better at the end of the rhythm ttrack, so I play a little puzzle.

Be creative and always keep in mind that the guitar is a dangerous tool to express something with a solo. A solo is no ego show

Try to find out the following when you tend to stuck:
sound+rhythm+dynamic+style+length+intention(just a fill or main solo) and so on

 

[Plank_Spanker]

I was trying to think of a way to make my solos sound decent.

Sometimes when I try to improvise I just cant make the whole thing sound good but there are usually sections that I like and others that are just bad.

So what about playing over some changes 6-7 times and try to play something different each time. Then just take out the sections that work and try to construct a solo out of those.

It’s something that you HAD improvised and now it is a solo that you practiced.


Any other advice?

That is exactly what I do. I'll record a rough rhythm track and play solos over it. Then I'll cut and paste the best parts into the final product.

It's funny. I can hear the solo I want to do in my head sometimes. At times, my ideas overload my chops.

 

[Robert]

Moshe, that is a good idea. When I listen to my videos improvising, I start thinking "I gotta use that idea more... and that bend there too", etc.

Listening to your own improvising is good, because you'll pick up on the sloppy parts, and you'll also pick up on the good ones (which for me are very few, but that doesn't matter).

 

[R_of_G]

some anecdotal advice

Some stuff that has worked for me...

First, I would agree wholeheartedly with Tone2thebone and others, that singing/whistling/humming along is key to putting together a cohesive solo. I would assume like the rest of us you find yourself humming or whistling some little bits of "original" melody lines from time to time when a song isn't in your head. That's where I try to pull from for my soloing.

The second piece of advice I can offer is a bit of wisdom suggested in interviews with Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, my two favorite guitar players not named Django. A good solo doesn't have to have a million notes stuffed into every measure. Sometimes a good three or four note melodic run can be taken apart and played so many different ways that by doing that with the "verse" parts the solo organically writes itself and your hands just follow what you already will hear in your head. works for me a lot. sometimes it doesn't, but remember, not striking out just a third of the time can get you into the baseball hall of fame. fearlessness is the key to genuine solos. something i am still learning myself.

finally, i'd say to analyze some of the players whose solos you find to be genuine. you know the kind that you can hear anytime, regardless of whether or not you even know the song and you can say, this has to be frank zappa? listen and listen and figure out what it is that speaks to you about these soloists. for me it's the afforementioned frisell, ribot, and reinhardt that i always wind up turning to. back for a moment to the less is more theory on notes, i have to constantly remind myself that django only had two usable fingers on his left hand. almost all of his best runs are on one or two strings. imho, he is the greatest soloist to pick up a guitar.

hope that helps in some way. i usually find the best solos i get are the ones i don't think about or even necessarily realize i am "soloing" until i am already a few bars into it [it just flows out of whatver my friend steve and i were playing]. which reminds me of one last thing, whether you are recording solo to a backing track, playing with someone else on rhythm, or playing with a band, improvising should always be a communicative thing. percussive parts of solos can really focus people on locking down a groove. i look foward to hearing how you're developing.

 

[zeusse]

yes good point Rof G on the last thing you mentioned locking down on the beat or groove of the drums will accent the solo more....as say a snare shot or a cymbal crash or tom riff, try and calibrate your timing to fit with some of these and the solo will really come alive...its not always about speed but more of capturing that soul of the song and the beat really is the soul just like a heart beat.