For the last few years I've been playing in a six piece soul/funk band and a typical gig would give me two or tops three solos to do with the others being split between keys and sax.
I'm now going to be starting a 4 piece rock/soul band and this is going to mean I'm going to be taking loads of solos (many of which will be improvised rather than learned from a part). A guitarist's dream you might think, but I'm not really someone who studies solos and lead guitar extensively so though I can do the business where required I don't have a massive repertoire of interesting riffs and tricks.
I really hate watching bands where every solo is the same pentatonic cliches chained together so I want to move a bit beyond it and make sure I keep it interesting.
A lot of the You Tube videos of more advanced lead guitar seem to be focussed on how you can sweep a diminished arpeggio or play in locrian and that's all very well, but will never fit into any of the music that I play which is going to be mainly over Dominant or Minor 7th chords, sometimes quite static.
What I need are some interesting ideas and approaches I can pull out of the bag and make a solo more interesting.
To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm reasonably comfortable with the pentatonic, aeolian, ionian, and dorian all over the neck and I'd like to get better at mixolydian. The other modes don't actually seem useful over anything I play ( I could be wrong).
I can do some very basic chromaticism and getting outside though I'd like to improve this considerably.
I can sweep and tap in a basic way, but I find it hard to put it in a musical context in an improvised solo.
So what have you got?
Comments
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
If it's, "interesting for the audience" then I reckon one needs to have mostly melodic ideas with a bit of flash. Because most people latch onto a tune (it is "music" after all) and occasionally like to see a little bit of virtuosity... but not too much.
If it's "interesting for the other guitarist(s)" in the audience then you'll either have guitarists who can not play as well as you, in which case even wearing your Captain Pentatonic cape will impress them; or they'll be better than you in which case they won't find you interesting. And if they did they probably wouldn't admit it. Basically you'd have to be Guthrie Govan which is probably more work than most of us want to put into it.
And if you're trying to make it interesting for yourself then you've got an uphill struggle because you'll always know what's coming next... so it's hard to surprise yourself. But...
My own take on this issue is a song-by-song basis. Being very much of the Cptn. Pentatonic school in the past I've wondered how to do something different, to "make it interesting". So all the improvisation is done at home where I practice a song, keep the licks that I've borrowed/ come up with, and then live I'll use those. Any live improvisation mostly comes down to choosing on the fly which licks to use. The stuff which I personally find interesting I've borrowed and adapted, and I think its interesting-ness comes from the fact that it originally came from somewhere else.
I have no interest in impressing other guitarists, or appearing as a virtuoso shredder, I just don't want to bore the audience.
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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
EDIT: That came out a bit brusque! What I mean is that visuals count for as much, if not more, than "modal-musicality" for non-musical audiences. I think.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Someone literally sat me down and taught me all the pent positions and how to use them properly, then told me to start off on lead lines use the natural rhythm or strumming pattern of the song, then double stops etc and how to link them all in.
sorry If I'm talking like a simplton aha.. After that I was away - after recently 80 hours of jamming kinda getting it down a little... in my head I try and make my solo sound like someone singing a chorus on speed.
kinda got it now.
firstly I was striving for strong rhythmical feel that really accentuated and complemented the beat, yet had not too much repetition such as long repetitive tapping sections.
Vocally I was trying to keep it tuneful (probably failing), so it could in theory be hummed as a tune, and also I was trying to use the entire range of the fretboard just to express myself around a large range.
Also I was aiming for a contrast between spiky rhythmical bits and fast legato passages that culminated in musical peaks.
Finally I also attempted to bring the whole solo to a natural conclusion.
No idea how it came across really but it's basically how I try to do a solo though I certainly wouldn't say I had the whole thing in mind before I started. I'm probably a few seconds ahead of myself at any point.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.