Too many solos not enough ideas

monquixote

guitarfishbay said:

monquixote said:

PolarityMan said:

monquixote said:

PolarityMan said:

Do you need that many solos if you admittedly dont have "anything to say" in them?

If it was up to me no. 

As I've pointed out in the past I can take or leave solos and I don't really see them in the way that some people do of being the good bit or some magical gateway of expression.

That being said a lot of the songs we do are very short so if we rip solos out of them they are going to be very short (perhaps under 2 minutes) and have nothing to break up the verse/chorus/repeat nature of them.

What about instrumental interludes that aren't solos? Play with the dynamics, drop down to one instrument and build back up again, that kind if thing? I don't understand how it's possible to fit a song int 2 mins myself....some of our intros are about that long before the vocals start!!!

It's not an original material band so that's only an option where there is something to latch onto. Where possible it's exactly what I do. For example in MIdnight Hour, Knock on Wood and Superstition I play the brass lines in jazz octaves as an instrumental break. 

Could any of the other musicians handle a solo?

Or could your singer do a scat singing solo?

We do have a couple of short drum solos during the set. 

Our bass player is superb, but he really hates soloing and won't do it. I'd really like him to, but he doesn't feel confident about it.

close2u

I had a neat little solo for Long TYrain (until it was forced from the set list)

G minor pent

lots of position shifts with sliding etc

wish I'd recorded it

nickp

@monquixote

why not mix up the chord progressions a bit as well - presumably it is up to you guys if you solo over a static 7th chord but you could arrange the songs so that:

1. you change the chord progressions for the solos

2. do what pop arrangers do and change key for the solo

3. arrange some "proggy" parts for the whole band - ie arrange an instrumental section with drum and bass and even some scat singing from the vocals?  or break up your soloing with some worked out bits

sorry - probably trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs.  

hubobulous

A scary old vid when we were just starting out and didn't understand 'stage presence'...!! Might help with some ideas for Proud Mary.

monquixote

Nice soloage

We do the super fast Ike and Tina version so it's all a bit more manic than your version (Which I guess is the CCR version?)

hubobulous

Yeah, ours was the CCR one. When I was composing this, I wanted to try and mimic the vocal line a little, and then mix it up with something slightly more 'me' without going off on one. I like fast playing, but there's a time and place.

If you're playing the faster one, you can actually play a slower solo and it'll sound killer. From memory, there's a lot of D pentatonic, then A major, then B minor, so even Chuck Berry licks would work well following the chords, linked to a different motif for each chord.

Or you could do some trills. Or, over the D, you could play the Sweet Child intro, but just the first 8 notes repeated - I'm not kidding - its in D and people would recognise it and maybe like that you've mashed it up. Might be naff, or cool. I'd do that.

Anyway, these are just some 'ideas' that you might build on?

monquixote

At the moment I'm doing a very cliche fast Chuck Berry style thing over the D part and then switching to D major for the "Big Wheels" chords and going to something incorporating elements of the melody.

hubobulous

How about taking the notes of the D major scale, and then playing them up and down just on the D string, with open ones mixed in for good measure? Or, copy the concept of the Thunderstruck intro.

I'm actually serious about all of this. Its about ideas and inspiration, so the moment I hear EADGB chords, its easy to think of using open strings for a different vibe. You've got D and A in Proud Mary, so could be something there?

That's probably enough specifically for Proud Mary, but some of these concepts might stray into potential for the other songs?