Has the solo had it's day ?

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grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
As much modern mainstream music seems to lurch further and further towards 'groovability' and, well, less musicality, have some of the defining elements of popular music's heyday like solos, riffs, drum fills and the like had their day ?
Personally, I still require those elements if I think the song calls for it and I still dig them.
But are they on the way out ? Are we the last vestiges of yesteryear, clinging stubbornly to a dying way of being........or are we all really just a staging post on the road that has no end ?
Let the feasting begin.......
 
Good point. Solos were replaced by "breakdowns" and segments not unlike dub for a bit but these seems to be even less formal than previously used.
Part of the issue is structure. We're indoctrinated with certain structures that please us. We did move beyond these during the jamming, extended workout periods, (often enhanced or justified by certain substances much like rave/club music now), but even they had a sense of structure we could latch onto and therefore expectations and usually have them met or shockingly & excitingly not met.
I've been trying to alter my structures a bit of late. A couple of songs ago I used two "solo" sections but I'm still on the many feet make a solid surface path.
Perhaps it's just a phase: after all one can still give a kid a catchy song with verse, chorus and middle 8 & they'll sing along & do the air guitar bit. Children also get bored fairly quickly if subjected to too many grooves without something to latch onto.
Put it down to a new arc in the cycle and be pleased that it's not the ever reducing circle the diamond dog's skeletal family were trying to catch us in.
 
rayc said:
.......Solos were replaced by "breakdowns" ...........
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Drum fills were replaced with breakdowns, that are usually just funky beats. It really depends on the song and the style. A lot of the hip hop 'stuff' is sampled from classic R&B songs, and the grove and sometimes drum fill is the hook. Clyde Stubblefield's Funky Drummer is the most sample 'break' for a reason. There's no 'fill', but it's definitely a 'riff'.
Guitar 'solos' are dependent on the song. Some are just paraphrasing the main riff or a vocal line, but they still exist. Bass can have more of a pop or a slap, but again it's the style. The 'modern' country (that isn't country at all) would sound wrong with popping and slapping bass lines.
It's all up to what you are listening to, and most people that make up 'today's generation' are spoon fed the equivalent of a Twinkie. They want a simple drum beat to dance to, a thumping bass line that plods along with the constant 1/4 note bass drum, and guitar parts that don't step on the insipid lyrics. A very successful formula. :listeningmusic:
 
I distinctly recall "breakdowns" being more prominent than a "fill": a sample was inserted that took pride of place as a defining moment otherwise they would have been "fills" as fills were before them.
These were replaced by dub styled holes in the mix to feature a non decorative piece of rhythm or an instrument that was "solod" rather than playing a solo - and there was that brief spate of scratching that caused the destruction of many a prized piece of parental vinyl by experimental living room stereosystem (Garrard) turntablists. I take from these that the segment that usually called for an instrument to extrapolate an attention seeking bunch of space & time from the vocal melody was replaced with something that tended to ignore the vocal melody possibly because there wasn't one & therefore the performer had to seeks other means of virtuosity.
However, as you've noted, I have very little contemporary knowledge but I did pay some attention when The Message & other pieces featuring samples from Kraftwerk et al hit the airwaves.
Slap & Pop bass! - very 80's but I suppose the 80's have already come back & gone away a couple of times so it could be so.
NB
Los Trios Ringbarkus did a terrific parody of The Message featuring the chorus begiinning with "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the stove..."
 
Alot of bands I like still play solos, but they seem to be worked into beatdowns, or they're played more like riffs. Whacking a solo on after the second chorus does seem a bit lazy in 2011 though. People's attention spans are dwindling as we speak.
 
I write songs with lead breaks or guitar solos - it satisfies me ;-) . Today's music has pretty much dropped them save a couple top 40 tunes in the last year - I think there's a sax break in some song by Katy Perry currently - it almost sounds foreign. lol....
Makes you wonder what the next type of music will come out....we've lost a lot of the musical skills of the players....
 
I tend not to write them for my songs, although it depends upon the song. Comes of always being the 'lead' guitarist all my playing life and having to remember a gazillion solos because every other guitarist I've ever played with couldn't be bothered, or just wasn't good enough. As I recorded a lot of instrumental music before moving onto 'real' songs, I have a habit of putting instrumental passages in (a la the tune currently in the song comp) instead if I want something different in the tune.

The other half of my band tends to like me to play solos in his songs though - as we use acoustic guitars live, this is somewhat limiting, so I tend to keep them relatively simple and melodic. The one I'm currently working on has quite a long, relatively speaking, solo of 16 bars @ 6/8.
 
A way to incorporate a solo might be to go from a breakdown and then have a solo come in during or after. Best of both worlds
 
rayc said:
Perhaps it's just a phase: after all, one can still give a kid a catchy song with verse, chorus and middle 8 & they'll sing along & do the air guitar bit.
...
Put it down to a new arc in the cycle...
Click to expand...

Totally agree. For popular music as a whole, all elements of song need to be ignored for a while in order for new generations of musicians to rediscover and resurrect them. Their temporary absence will make their reintroduction down the road all the more novel and exciting.
 
If you limit your listening to what is popular then perhaps although popularity shifts dramatically like the wind.

But there's lots of music with lots of soloing and improvisation.
It may not be what's popular but since I feel the general public has the musical taste and discernment of moss, what's popular means absolutely nothing to me except in terms of what i might need to learn for gigging.

And, personally, even then I put sections for improv into pretty much anything.

I HAVE to play Brown Eyed Girl for example.
Doesn't mean I have to slavishly play it like the original.
You've got to play the signature lick but I stick a nice sax section in the middle that morphs into "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" before morphing back to BrownEyed Girl. Lots of room for me to stretch out ..... the audience loves it (even they like a change-up) and it keeps me fresh with something new to do every time.
I pretty much do that to everything I play ..... well, 80% of it anyway.
Contrary to the often stated premise that you have to play things exactly like the record, I constantly get compliments on the changes I make to songs. It just depends on if you can play well enough to put something worthwhile in there.
As far as I'm concerned .... I play songs the way the original artist wished they played them. :)
Sure ...... if you're gonna do YYZ by Rush you can't really change much except the solos can be played somewhat differently but that kind of music is pretty planned out and difficult to change but for most other styles the sky's the limit!

Also .... if'n you like improv and want to hear it and play it ........ ever hear of jazz? Good jazz is nothing BUT improv.
So git solos may not be popular anymore but there's no shortage of stuff that has them.
 
I put a solo in just about every song I do....though I've cut them down a bit from the longer stuff I use to do on some songs, just to keep the song a bit shorter, but IMO, you need to have some sort of break, and I like tossing in a lead line of some sort.
I don't care for songs that just go verse/chorus all the way through to the end with only maybe a couple of beats without any singing.

I've been wanting to try something different, where you take more modern R&B or some rambling/boring Alt Rock type of song...but then infuse it with some classic Rock structure/flavor and really give it a twist.

I'm starting to really hate hearing Rap/Hip Hop flavor injected into almost EVERY other style, as it is all becoming very predictable and IMO, just succumbing to "fashion trends". It's a lame attempt at being everything to everyone all within a single song, rather than each song having a distinct style that sticks to its roots.
If you are going to do a Country tune...forget the Autotune "chirps" and the Hip-Hop beats...just to a $&!#?!* Country tune!

That said, there is a reason certain song structures work over and over and over in modern music for a lot of folks.
Repetition is the key...and of course, the "hook" is still king.
 
I like solos. There are so many different kinds of them in so many different kinds of music. Even in what we commonly call 'classical' music, many composers of yesteryear would leave an open section in their tightly constructed piece for the pianist to inprovise so there was a fresh approach in each performance of a piece. In many ethnic styles of music, for centuries instrumentalists and vocalists would go off in wild directions. Let's face it, Indian ragas are often one long improvisation. In gospel, the instrumentalists didn't solo ~ but the singers did.
Not all my bits will have obligatos but I like the challenge of constructing them for those that do. I virtually never make them a restatement of the melody, probably because I tend to think that the melody has enough showtime ! I also really like twin solos. Not the old Thin Lizzy harmony type thing, but actual twin leads where the two soloing instruments are doing something each totally different ~ but complimentary. It requires from the listener a certain "aural schizophrenia" !
miroslav said:
I've been wanting to try something different, where you take more modern R&B or some rambling/boring Alt Rock type of song...but then infuse it with some classic Rock structure/flavor and really give it a twist.

I'm starting to really hate hearing Rap/Hip Hop flavor injected into almost EVERY other style, as it is all becoming very predictable and IMO, just succumbing to "fashion trends". It's a lame attempt at being everything to everyone all within a single song, rather than each song having a distinct style that sticks to its roots.
If you are going to do a Country tune...forget the Autotune "chirps" and the Hip-Hop beats...just to a $&!#?!* Country tune!
Click to expand...
This struck me as kind of interesting and is perhaps another thread on it's own, but taking it wider, what's really being described here in the loosest terms is a fusion of styles. Both parts really are talking about the same thing. Up until relatively recently, rock was the form that best absorbed the other styles of music and survived by reinvention because of it. I think that's changed somewhat and as a result is coming as something of a shock to many. Rap is set to infuse many genres for a long time to come because it actually fuses well with just about any style one cares to name.
 
But it's making everything sound the same.

Nothing wrong with fusing styles occasionally...but it's like every other style thinks it's "hipper" if it has a little Rap/Hip-Hop flavor thrown in.
I actually find it somewhat condescending....to Rap/Hip-Hop.
I'm not a Rap/Hip-Hop listener (some is pretty good, beat-wise)...but I actually think this "fashion trend" will undermine Rap.

It's like during the late '60s when hippie/psychedelic Rock became mainstream, and you could find it on prime-time TV, all those stupid "flower-power" shows trying to look "hip and in"....aka "The Partridge Family"...


I think song styles/genres stay stronger when they remain more true to their roots instead of everything turning into some multi-style mash-up.
 
I guess it depends on how the artist incorporates it.
 
grimtraveller said:
As much modern mainstream music seems to lurch further and further towards 'groovability' and, well, less musicality, have some of the defining elements of popular music's heyday like solos, riffs, drum fills and the like had their day ?
Click to expand...

I certainly hope not. I just spent about six months really working on scales, modes, picking accuracy and technique, I'd hate to think it was all for nothing :guitar:
 
This sounds a bit like the old "Death of Melody" debate. The thesis there being that in the 'good old days' melody was king but now it's been put in the rest home. The popularity of writing songs on guitar by strumming chords has sometimes been fingered as one of the villains in the piece. The idea being that old timers started by writing a melody (often on a keyboard) and then added harmony, whereas if you strum chords first it can lead to predictable singing that just follows the obvious leading tones of the chords.... or something like that...

But I don't think solos or melody are dead, they're just currently taking a nap through some music styles (but by no means all). They'll be up and about again in no time.
 
I'd go along with that, Hakea. Any given song could have a combination of elements ~ melody, rhythm, dissonance, obligato, harmony, counterpoint, speed, variations of time signature, chorus, verse, bridges, drama, noise, quiet, there must be tons of things that go into songs, regardless of the genre.
It follows equally that any of these elements, for whatever reason, may well also be absent from one song to the next. Solos would be included in that.
 
Fusion music and confusion music.
Melange and mess.
Mashups and rehashups.
Yep, we often throw i, some lime juice with the tomato sauce to experiment or spice things up but there's every chance it'll end up like tea stirred with the dirty coffee spoon.
Change we must, experiment we ought, succeed we may, talk about it endlessly we will.
& I for one quite like reading the opinions (unsubstantiated or otherwise) of other folk - particularly those I've come to respect through , albiet limited internet based, interaction.
Oh, Oh,...
The worst case of "keeping it real" with old songs must be the Police reunion tour where Stung required the band to play the hits with new arrangements and settings that refelected the more mature considerations of his solo oeuvre.
 
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