Not fade away - Buddy Holly

Flanging_Fred

Right, a super simple song.

E A E, A D A

My band want me to do a couple of solos on this in a dirtier rock kind of way.  It should be dead simple but I just can't get anything to sound convincing.  It could be the syncopation but pretty much all the YouTube versions of this sound a bit crap too. The best is the Rolling stones version but the solo on that is harmonica.

The closest I got was attempting using a slide but to be honest, I'm useless with a slide, it's all over the place.

Any good ideas on this? Pentatonics should work fine but Im just not feeling it. 

octatonic

Pentatonics is the way to go but played the right way.
Don't just aimlessly noodle- sing a melody (with your voice) and then place that on the guitar.
I would also use diads made up of 3rds, because they are such a part of the guitar part anyway so it will work pretty seamlessly.

You could even just do more of a chordal thing.

Have a listen to this Setzer version, which is pretty cool.

Flanging_Fred

Thanks @octatonic, it sounds like I'm on the right track, I usually tackle it with double stops up around the 12th fret.  It's just hard to get anything that doesn't sound like it's just mirroring that rhythm part. It's SUCH a strong rhythm it's hard to break out of it and yet compliment it.

octatonic

Flanging_Fred said:

Thanks @octatonic, it sounds like I'm on the right track, I usually tackle it with double stops up around the 12th fret.  It's just hard to get anything that doesn't sound like it's just mirroring that rhythm part. It's SUCH a strong rhythm it's hard to break out of it and yet compliment it.

I agree it is a strong rhythm- here is a way of getting some variations, which is to either displace notes or remove notes.

Try clapping the guitar part with the accents.
Then take one or two beats away, or move one of them by an 8th or a 16th.
You have a new rhythm- let's call the original rhythm A and this one B.
Now do it again- and you have C.

This gives you 3 parts that you can play.
I like playing them in A B A C but feel free to alter this as well.

This is essentially how drummers approach getting variations into their playing.

Flanging_Fred

Excellent, I'll give that a try, it might just be what I need... 

koneguitarist

The band did a great version on the buddy holly tribute album with the crickets. With a nice solo by Jim Weider. YT should be around. 

viz

Personally I'd be inclined to try and break completely away from the rhythm, because I think that'd be a welcome change, and sing it first like Octa suggests. The tune I have in my head is basically a soaring solo up at the shiny end, with lots of wah and legato triplet runs. It's all in E Dorian with added aug4 over the changes so that there's a continuous pull back to the E finale, where I'd finish on some picked bends up to the top B or top D (or top E if I had enough frets).