Ideas to improve my blues/rock soloing?

[Matt77]

get lessons on an ad-hoc basis from someone that really knows their stuff and can teach experienced players.
PM if you want to know some really decent local people and also some to avoid.

[38thBeatle]

All the above are great ideas. I would say that there are obviously many great blues players over the last 40 or 50 years that are worth listening to. I just think it is about finding the zone and to do that, I have absorbed tons of blues music over the years and at some point  my addled brain turns it into something that is hopefully unique to me. I think it is a question of casting your net wide and listening to a wide variety of players from the blues era. A bit lame advice but all I can come up with. I did buy some backing tracks a few years back and I have had many a happy hour playing along. Snappily titled "Play The Blues" it is a set of 3 cds with a short example and then a lengthy backing track and covering the major styles and a variety of keys. www.musicroom.com

[bucketshred]

Play from the heart.

[dave_mc]

Two schools of thought Dave - yours/Yngwie Malmsteen and mine/EVH.  Both valid  ;)

I hear what you're saying in the rest of your post though so cheers  :)

Good stuff folks, keep it coming!

i can't see how evh doesn't know theory, doesn't he play piano too? it's pretty hard to play piano without knowing theory (and according to wiki he learnt that as a child)... i mean, evh is well known to lie about his gear, why not about theory too? don't get me wrong, i love EVH, he's the reason i started to play guitar in the first place... just saying.

the other thing is, how do you know when someone tells you that they don't know theory that they aren't just lying in the hope of screwing you over, so only they can write good songs? :lol: if someone says he/she does know theory, that's pretty easy to test. much harder to test when someone claims to have no knowledge of something...

No offence Dave but EVH was born that way, unless you are go the theory way. That was a Satch to student response not me!

+1

wasn't satch's response about srv? same idea, though. :)

pentatonic and blues boxes are theory anyway - so you already know some.

can only echo the advice to learn a bit of theory and listen intently to some favourite lead players. you'll have some of their licks down in no time!

yeah, definitely. :)

i seem to remember someone saying in an interview (it might have been dime, but i could be wrong... nuno is also ringing a bell) to learn as much theory as you can, and then try to forget it. that's pretty good advice right there. get the theory into your subconscious, so it's there if you ever get stuck, but then when playing play what sounds and feels right.

[AndyR]

Ummm... I think you need to free up your mind... and, er, fingers... (ma-an) :lol:

You're already playing lead live - and getting away with it? You've learnt a bunch of phrases and licks, enough of them so you can string together a solo and fool most people in the audience... but you don't feel like you're fooling yourself enough anymore?

What I found, to get past that blockage, was obviously some sort of "mind freeing" - but I'm blowed if I can figure out exactly how I did it. I'm still playing the same licks and phrases, but nowadays I feel like I'm talking with the thing.

If you've got another instrument lying around that appeals to you - put some time into it, it helps the guitar playing in some mystical hippyish way. I played bass in a worship band for a few years, and I taught myself to play piano so I could write more freely – both times really improved my guitar playing without me practicing guitar at all!!

Theory is not a bad thing - but don't take the stuff too seriously :lol: Don't feel you have to learn it - just know about it. I know about modes etc, and I know roughly which page on which book on which bookshelf I could find some - but I don't know the intervals for each mode, I couldn't play you one.

But I do know an AWFUL lot about harmony and how chords are constructed and what intervals are used to convey certain moods emotions, and how the melody and bass line change the chord that we guitarists think is the one we're all playing.

I'm also a dab hand at finding new ways of playing simple chords somewhere else on the neck so it sounds interesting - sounds like you might be as well? If so, start thinking about this - scales and melodies are just chords strung out, and chords are just scales all played at once.

I originally started playing lead years ago by thinking "the chord is A, so I know I can play an A, an E, and a C#, anywhere on the neck, I guess as long as I don't stick around too long on the inbetween notes, I can also play any linking note that's in the key the song is in..." – I actually walked on stage with that knowledge alone!! (what an arrogant git I must have been :lol:)

After that I started learning Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, riffs - never solos, funnily enough - and then we discovered Chuck Berry licks, that sort of thing. And someone introduced me to pentatonic scales, and I picked up my own way of doing it which is pretty much a dorian mode with something else chucked in... And I stole what I could from where I could... But I've never really lost that "the chord is A, so I know I can play an A, an E, and a C#, anywhere on the neck..." approach.

What I'm saying is, if you're good at chords and harmony - use that knowledge to expand where you're allowed to wander on the fretboard when you play lead.

Lastly, make recordings - by all means jam along to backing tracks, that gives good sub-conscious work outs and relaxes you, and if you make a mistake that sounds good you've suddenly got a new phrase/lick/trick in your library... BUT what I've found really stretches me is RECORDING IT. Especially, trying to record a song where I've deliberately planned "NO Solo", but there's say 6 bars when there's no vocal and something interesting has to happen, and I happen to be a guitarist... so up steps "Mr Axe hero" for his lead-break, and at first I can't think of anything worth saying, but 5 hours and 100 takes later something evolves out of all the cliches and mistakes you chuck at it... you have that perfect little "guitar bit" that on commercial records sounds so spontaneous and original (but of course it's neither).

I think it's related to the hum a tune and try to play it suggestion, but you put yourself under pressure deliberately because you've only got 6 bars to show yourself how good you are, and - because you record it - you can judge, and you can't get away till it's done. Try it- you'll be amazed what you can come up with. Do this a few times, and you'll suddenly find one day that you can break free of the licks and phrases, if only a few moments maybe - but just enough to make it feel like you're talking when you're playing...

I do hope there was something useful in all that waffle! :D

[Philly Q]

You make it all sound easy Andy.... so why did I feel more and more inept and intimidated as I read that post?  :lol:

[hunter]

get lessons on an ad-hoc basis from someone that really knows their stuff and can teach experienced players.
PM if you want to know some really decent local people and also some to avoid.

+1

I wanted to say the same. Try a teacher, if only a few lessons, it can open up new aspects and give you some feedback and different perspective.

I hate theory as well, but if you look at the really good players, they all have it in the pocket. Don't you think those players you mentioned didn't know their scales and stuff. It's just knowing it all and knowing it so well that you can forget it, as it becomes a muscle. Well, this is where I'd love to be ...

[nfe]

One of the things I have started to do lately is record a basic 12 bar rhythm, loop it and hum what I would want to solo over it (I never seem to get stuck for solo ideas whilst thinking about them in my head or humming them out loud).

This is pretty much the best way to learn to solo better in my opinion. Ideally you shouldn't EVER be playing a note just because you know that particular spot on the fretboard works over any particular chord, or worse still, because you're playing a shape and that happens to be in it.

You should really be able to scat every single note you play in an improvised solo as you play. Now, not many of us are George Beson, but it's something to aim for  :lol:

[AndyR]

You make it all sound easy Andy.... so why did I feel more and more inept and intimidated as I read that post?  :lol:

Oh whoops!  :oops:

Wasn't what I was planning :roll:

The more I think about it though - the more I think that the "recording it" bit has been quite important for me over the last few years. When we all play, we're communicating - if we haven't got anything, or much, to say, then we're not going to get too good at it. So force yourself into a position of having to say something - say to yourself "there's your eight bars mate, have a blow...", but make sure you're doing it in private (even if you're hoping it'll be good enough to show someone else).

[Johnny Mac]

Play from the heart.

Or with your feet, now that would sound different!

Good Post AndyR!! I get what your saying with that recording thing, I'll check it out when i'm not so sore!  :D

[Philly Q]

You make it all sound easy Andy.... so why did I feel more and more inept and intimidated as I read that post?  :lol:

Oh whoops!  :oops:

Wasn't what I was planning :roll:

I know, I know!  But I always get the impression that playing guitar - or playing music - comes fairly naturally to most people (to a greater or lesser degree, of course).  But absolutely nothing comes naturally to me.  When you talk about understanding harmony or "finding new ways of playing simple chords somewhere else on the neck", to me it's like you're discussing quantum physics  :( . 

Yes, I could understand individual examples, in an academic-exercise sort of way.... OK, there's a different way of playing a G7.  But taking that little snippet and stringing it all together with some other stuff in a natural, instinctive fashion to make music?  No way.



Anyway..... back on topic.   I can see what you're saying about recording from the perspective of challenging yourself/putting yourself under pressure.

But I think it could have another benefit too - listening back to a recording can make you realise that what sounded great to you (as you played it) mightn't sound great to someone else!  Maybe the timing was off, maybe there were mistakes you didn't notice, maybe your bends were a bit off-pitch.  Of course, it might also make you realise that you're better than you thought you were! 

[Johnny Mac]

Phil, go and see Johnny Mizaroli for one of his courses, he'll sort you out, you'll love it you really will!
I know he comes over a bit trippy on his website but he can play anything and he'll show you how.

[Philly Q]

I dunno, Johnny.  We've discussed it before (thanks again for the info), and I've spent a lot of time reading his website, but all the Third-Eye hippy-dippy gubbins and heavy emphasis on improvisation does put me off. 

I'd just like to be able to play meat-and-potatoes stuff, I'm never gonna be Uli Roth.  I don't look good in a kaftan.  :( 

[JDC]

personally I think you learn theory to break theory, I once read on some jazz theory site there are no bad notes, just bad resolutions

a good site for the basics that explains it well is www.musictheory.net

[shaman]

yknow, the best thing I think I show people is the pent. scale in ALL POSITIONS...and then expand that to relative major/minor....for example, the  g major pent. in ALL Positions...up and down the neck.....then, PRESTO!its also E Minor!!!woooo!Paul Gilbert, a shredmeister,as well as Shawn LAne, are masters at doing the penta thing every where on the neck(not just the classic box positions...)
......figure out intervals!!!!!!!!!it unlocks so many mysteries....
...and it just builds from there
...I am digging playing open string stuff, a la NASHVILLE GUITAR...I live 2 hours from Nash..go to see all of these Albert Lee wannabe's...it really opens up the fretboard......check out MArtin Tallstrom's website-free tab!! enjoy!!!!!!!!!