Interesting solos without speed

six

six

New member
Hi all

Lately I haven't been playing much, and now I have to find out that I'm even less fluid than I used to be... and slower, somehow. Not much, but I am.

On the other hand I've always wanted to be able to play solos that are interesting despite the lack of lightning fast licks anyway... but I can't. Everything I play sounds extremely boring to me, predictable and too structured.

Do you have any ideas / tips on how to get away from the same old same and how to prevent myself from always trying to play at the limits of my technical abilities?

Your help is appreciated.

Cheers.

Six.
 
Any idiot can learn a few scales and play them very fast. There are damn few players that can play fast and think or feel their way into something interesting and different. To play that fast it is mostly reflex and learned patterns.
If you listen to These guys and disect what they play in a given situation you will find this to be true. You don't notice it because you cant really latch on to what they play. A truly great player can play a slow solo and be just as impressive.

A good place to start is to stop listening to guitar players. Check out Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson and Grant Green( a great and over looked guitarist)
 
Bending notes goes a long way towards making interesting solos without blazing speed. It's an art in itself, mix halfnote, whole note, 1 1/2 note etc. Vibrato is also an unsung weapon in slowhand style..very effective, b ut unless you practice it a LOT, not as effective.
 
I play jazz gigs a couple of nights a week, and I have the benefit of studying with a really heavy NY guy. I would suggest a couple of things:

First, learn lots of melodies. Not just playing the notes, but playing the melodies as expressively as possible. I don't know what style of music you play, but whatever it is, the melody rules the tune. If your solo is informed by the melody it will always lay better, IMO. The more melodies you learn, the more you will approach solos by creating your own melodies, as opposed to wanking off.

Second, a solo is not an excuse to leave the pocket. If you can give the same thought to playing with good time and groove to your solo lines as you do when you play rhythm, your solo will maintain better context to the tune - and you'll probably find you have more to say.

Great topic, btw. :)
 
I try to think of my guitar as another voice. It's the times when "she" sings the clear lines that are the most interesting. I'm not a lightning fast player and as already mentioned I play the melody lines a lot. Sometimes I build upon those lines, other times I try to work within the boundaries of the melody. When my guitar "speaks" to me that the most interesting and sometimes amazing leads occur. Cramming 160 notes into a single measure is imperssive, but holding a single note 3 measures with feeling can reach inside people and touch their souls, and to me, that is what a real guitarist wants to do.
 
1. Approach your lines like a horn player, even humming along. You'll need to stop regularly for breaths, this, in itself, will provide a natural pacing.

2. Similarly, exaggerate the pauses, extend them to several measures. Plot out your lines internally, then play 'em.

3. Got favorite scales, fingering shapes, licks? Ban 'em.
 
False RH harmonics

Other than burying your sound in effects, which I like to do when I want to be as annoying as possible, partially muting the string when you pick it with the side of the thumb at a harmonic node produces a nice octave divide effect that can be varied to produce wah-wah and flange effects without hitting a foot pedal. Drives girls crazy and makes other guitarists mad.
 
A great vocalist once told me...

The hardest lick for a guitar player to play.... is the one they don't....

Think about it. It makes sense. (I was a bit of an "over-player in 1988" :))
 
Hey, thanks for the replies so far (an keep on posting).

Miles Davis? I've even got a record somewhere... never really listened to it :o. I'll go and play it now...

3. Got favorite scales, fingering shapes, licks? Ban 'em.
Click to expand...

ha! I LOVE this one. I usually do this when I work out a solo... but improvising I end up doing the same stuff again and again. I think having a broader repertory of "licks" (or melodies or whatever) might help there... although I'm not a real lick-player anyway.
 
listen to some STP. dean deleo writes some of the coolest solos, and they are so different from what everyone else plays. some of them are hard, but most are just really different.
 
I recommend listening to some Boston.

Tom Shultz has some great melodies in his solos. One of my favorite solos of his is in the bridge of "man I'll never be".
 
Do not forget a dive into Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the like every now and then.. Letting the damn thing just feeding back on a bended note is effective as hell!.. Also those old bluestricks, bending the third string while doodling something on the first two, are great when left feeding back, things sound new when wanking the pick-up selector.
..and then, there is the world of effect-pedals!:D
 
Yeah, Six, as others suggest, make every note count. Holding a note for two seconds can be interesting or boring depending on what you do with it. One interesting by-product of being a recording musician is improving the ability to 'double' a solo part at times. I still remember the first time a recording engineer asked me to repeat a solo (for a second track), and I thought "huh?" I had to go back and study my own solo, note by note, which led to some good self-analysis of my style. That was a great lesson learned, something I still consider every time I record.

That, and lots of practice during my early years, copying my guitar heroes note for note before eventually finding my own voice.

Good luck, man~
J.
 
sarge117 said:
Tom Shultz has some great melodies in his solos.
Click to expand...

Shultz? He knows nothing.

image.out
 
More Blackmore

As a lazy child in time I transcribed Deep Purple solos. I learned to play more notes than necessary. Wring that Neck/ Hard Road took years to overcome the obsessive notoriety. We still play Smoke on the Water. Stick with Black Sabbath.
 
George Harrison was really good at making every note count. I wouldn't call him a great improviser but he did play a lot of memorable "solos" if you want to call them solos.
 
leddy said:
I play jazz gigs a couple of nights a week, and I have the benefit of studying with a really heavy NY guy. I would suggest a couple of things:

First, learn lots of melodies. Not just playing the notes, but playing the melodies as expressively as possible. I don't know what style of music you play, but whatever it is, the melody rules the tune. If your solo is informed by the melody it will always lay better, IMO. The more melodies you learn, the more you will approach solos by creating your own melodies, as opposed to wanking off.

Second, a solo is not an excuse to leave the pocket. If you can give the same thought to playing with good time and groove to your solo lines as you do when you play rhythm, your solo will maintain better context to the tune - and you'll probably find you have more to say.

Great topic, btw. :)
Click to expand...
+1

You have all you need to know right here.;)
 
six said:
I've always wanted to be able to play solos that are interesting despite the lack of lightning fast licks anyway.
Click to expand...

Interesting DESPITE the lack of lightning fast licks?

My God, now I've heard it all!

To me there's nothing more boring than listening to the "guitar gods" (Vai, Satriani, you know who they are) ripping through scales and yes, lightning fast licks, and wondering where the music went. You can get more feeling out of a well-placed quarter note than a kajillion thirty second notes (remember, you read it here first). Listen to B B King, if you don't believe me. I think of all those years those guys spent learning to play so meaninglessly fast when they could have been chunking rocks into a pond, and it makes me sad.

One of my favorite all-time solos is Ry Cooder's on John Hiatt's Lipstick Sunset. That oozes feeling without once going "blickety clickety nick nick nick nick NICK". Check it out.
 
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