For the last few months I have been working myself through the excellent Dave Celantano's Caged Commander course on Truefire which has been good because it has allowed me to learn the major scale in all 5 positions. There are lots of exercises to help you with this, and at the end of every caged position there is a solo to learn to put everything into a musical context. The problem is once I have learned each solo and move onto the next one after a while I forget how to play the previous solo. Is this normal and will my development as a guitarist be hindered because of this. There are some great moves in the solos which I probably would not use when improvising over a backing track because I have forgotten them. I want to move onto a course on arpeggios next but feel that I shouldn't until I can play all of these solos in my sleep. I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks...
Comments
I find I have to play solos a lot before the ideas get under my fingers enough that I start being able to use them spontaneously in other situations. It's similar to songs. There are a few songs I've gigged so much that I feel I could not hear them for 10 years and still know them well enough to perform.
On the other hand when I used to teach at guitar summer camps, I would learn three songs inside out so that I could teach them without referring to my notes for five days straight. But I couldn't play any of them now because I haven't looked at them since. For a piece to go permanently into my memory I need to play it regularly over a period of months.
If you just want the technical benefits of learning a solo it's probably fine to master it and move on, but if you want to absorb the ideas thoroughly you'll probably need to play them regularly to keep them ticking over.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
1st listen to it so much that it's an ingrained ear worm so you can hum it all by heart
2nd learn to play it
3rd sit on the sofa with your guitar in front of the TV and idly play it 1000 times without worrying too much if you make a minor mistake
You'll soon have it so memorised it will let much always be there.
Works for me.
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for an integral part of a performance.
work and a much more rounded vocabulary. Learn as much as you, but I wouldn’t cling on to everything you will remember the better parts as you go along.
Learning a solo note for note is fun once in a while...I've been learning Hideaway for 35 years...
it's a bit subliminal ......I will find myself soloing and loads of little cliches and snapshots of these forgotten solos come pouring out..the struggle is then to cohesively bond them together and dress them around the melody of the particular song or incorporate a few arpeggio lines over the appropriate chord.
You don't realise how much you actually know or that come as pure muscle memory.
Of course ,the ultimate player is perfectly ear trained to the fretboard so as you hear the solo/improv in your head the hands automatically pick it out of the fretboard ...................sadly,that's not me
Nothing else works.