guitar solos

scottless

how do people compose solos. how do they know wat notes would sound good put togheter and stuff like that how can you learn how to compose solos

Pyr0

Its not as simple as just playing a really great solo out of nowhere that runs well together, some players can pull it off and just 'know' what will sound great before they play it, while most players would know scales/modes/chords etc which is all based around musical theory. If you know your scales and a lesser extent modes then you'll know what to play before you play it.

That's a pretty loose explanation but I'm sure you'll get what I'm saying.

rgjmce

I think it's mostly about feel really

NoQuarter

I think the feeling comes when your comfortable with the fretboard but when beginning its all about scales!

Incase you dont know scales are just patterns of notes on the fretboard that have already been established to sound good together, once you memorize the patterns you can play anywhere on the fretboard within that pattern and you know you will stay in the same key, therefore sound good!

have a look here: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/One_on_one_pentatonic_scale2.htm

Demeyes

A bit of theory goes a long way to help. A small knowledge of how to play in key with scales will let you know what to work with. Then it's a case of practicing improvising, and trial and error with experimenting over backings that will let you get a good idea of what will and won't work.
You can pick up loads from learning other people's solos and trying to figure out what they did that worked.
All of this put together helps when you try and write your own.

scottless

where could i learn the appropriot theory iv had a look for stuff about keys but didn have much successe

fguihen

google will help you out, but trust me, you wont beat a good teacher.

I recently got a teacher and ive learned more in the last 2 months than in the two years previous to that.

rather than just learning songs, ive learned a lot about how songs are structured, how artists out there, create rhythm and lead, not by pulling it out of thin air, but using established techniques and theory.

I wont try to detail it here, as im not the most eloquent of folks, and it would be a pretty long post!

pm me if your interested in contact details of my teacher.

Alanstrainor

Listening to your favorite guitarists is another thing to do. And once you have even a pentatonic scale down, try and jam along, a lot of improvisation comes from experience, i'm mad about blues, and the more i listen to it the more little bits i pick up and incorporate into my playing. Unfortunately it's not something you'll pick up over night, practice practice and practice some more!

Doctor J

The smartest thing Ozzy ever said was that a guitar solo should have a beginning, middle and end, that it should tell a story and if you listen to the solos on his first few solo albums you'll get an idea of what he tried to instill on Rhoads, Lee and Wylde. Playing scales and shapes is fine but the solo needs to make melodic sense in context with the music and that takes a lot of work. What you do will always require use of scales but you'll get more mileage out of five well phrased notes than one hundered flailed ones. I'm not a natural guitar player by any means, I started on bass and bass will always be my favoured instrument. Playing solos is something I never practiced when I took up guitar, I was always playing riffs instead of widdling away, just never had the inclination to be a lead player. In my current set I'm the only guitarist and some of the songs felt better with solos in them so I've had to learn how to go about it. I've also worked with a fair few bands in the studio and, in my experience, the guys who take the time out to write a proper solo always sound better then the guys who just lash through blues licks. So my approach is to try to come up with a melody over the solo section and then embellish it with guitary stuff, not to dissimilar to how a singer might compose a vocal melody.

My advice would be to listen to good solos, paying attention to the note choice, how they build up or bring down the mood, how they phrase a run of notes or draw so much out of a single note. For example, the intro to Good Mourning/Black Friday by Megadeth, played by Chris Poland is one of my all time favourites. He leaves space, he wrings so much out of simple sounding bends and it just works so well on the music beneath. Listen to your favourite solos and try to understand what they're doing, how they interact with the music, how they play off the established vocal melody, how they play faster or slower notes off each other. View the entire solo as a melody, rather than an exercise on how fast they can play a scale.

-=al=-

i hear it in my head then i tranfare what i hear onto the guitar as best as i can

scottless

-=al=- wrote: »

i hear it in my head then i tranfare what i hear onto the guitar as best as i can

iv tried that but iv found it very difficult to match the notes i have in my head and to transfer them on to the fret board..........so any tips on how to do that

Pyr0

You really have to know the fretboard to be able to do it successfully, i've been playing about 4 years now and I roughly know what sound a fret will make, where to find that sound etc. Even now if someone was to tell me to play the note F on the B string, it'll take me a moment to figure it out because i haven't set aside the time to learn the fretboard.

-=al=-

learning the notes on the fretboard is the no.1 rule for me, makes theory 100 times easier to apply

simple chord/scale construction, a little theory on harmony is the best thing to do, nothing extensive is needed just the basics, then everytihng else falls in place, nothing beats practice to learn about what the guitars gona do if u do a certain thing, practice makes perfecto

and remember if u cant do it accuratly slow no chance u can do it fast ...i don't know how many videos of guitar people playing fast shred songs/solos/nonsence on youtube, then when it comes to a simple melody and playing gracefully the timing, vibrato, fretting, tuning, phrasing, bends... everything is off ...dont forget to do the simple things rather than the "impressive" fast stuff i guess, takes a while to know the instrument

leon45

scottless wrote: »

iv tried that but iv found it very difficult to match the notes i have in my head and to transfer them on to the fret board..........so any tips on how to do that

The main way people improve this, and the best option other than years of playing is to sing the note you want to sound

this slows down your playing, makes you really think about what you want to hear

scottless wrote: »

how do people compose solos. how do they know wat notes would sound good put togheter and stuff like that how can you learn how to compose solos

At a more advanced level (well you need to think alot about it), playing notes that are in the chord you are playing over can bring the sweetest results