[stubhead]

Here's a perfect solo to work on counting and sequencing (I use this with my more advanced guitar students):



After a bit of crowd-pleasing, Gilbert plays the same lick sixteen times in a row, with slight stop/start variations. Then he plays another lick three times in a row and climbs out of it to another lick, which he also plays three times and then goes to variations. I'd say this solo is probably about 80% "set" and 20% improvised - he knows what each section is and the order he want to get to them, but the interconnections and the number of repeats might change from night to night. On Gilbert's new CD "Get Out Of My Yard" theres an accompanying DVD where he goes over all the solos note-for-note, so he certainly has them memorized, it's just the way he personally works. He mentions doing a lot of improvising to get to the solos in final form, but there's nothing wrong whatever with "writing" music. The tech-metal stuff like Dysrythmia, Behold... the Arctopus and Blotted Science is written note-for-note, there's no other way to play it.

At 1:21 of the Gilbert solo he plays another lick 8 times in a row, goes to some variations that are just a single pattern working through a modal sequence, then at 2:19 he plays another lick three times and again comes out of the third one into variations - there's a real, learnable approach to construction in this solo - it's built like a brick shithouse. You have to do the work to extract the knowledge from it, but it's a lot easier once you see how it's built up out of repeated units. The more great solos you learn from other guitarists the more you'll learn about construction, pacing and creating & releasing tension, but you want to try to avoid the trap of blind mimicry. There are way too many guitarists who have no voice of their own, so somewhere within learning the first few hundred solos it's worthwhile to start analyzing what it is about certain musical patterns and constructions that appeals to you personally, and investigate them more deeply.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by stubhead

There are no set-in-stone rules about sequencing, the point is that you have to pay attention to it. My advice to you would be to cut way back on practicing sweeps, alternate picking, tapping for a while and spend a good portion of that time listening, HARD, to your favorite solos.

Quoted for emphasis, as this is the highlight of an excellent post. If you've read this thread and still come back to this:

thanks for all the different tips, I need to work on memorizing tonality, and a few other functions of intervals, however I've begun putting in anywhere from 3-5 hours of practice/learning a day, and in one week have progressed more than a collective year.

...then you're kind of missing the point. A good solo isn't about how many hours you practiced before you took it, you know?

[ArchAngel1024]

I spend a lot of time over the coarse of a day listening to music, and trying to analyze solos, and had overlooked the comment.

I need to put some of on paper.

I attached 2 pieces I've been working on.

The longer one is a song I'm co-writing, the 2 shorter ones were trials for my solo.

[Zand3]

can you post a video of you soloing , i feel like ppl could offer advice much better if they could see where you are with this exactly

[Demeyes]

I don't know know if this will apply fully to you or not, but if your not playing in a band or jamming regularly with another pitched musician than you should. Playing and feeding off other people will push you to step out of your comfort zone and get some ideas. It will also help your improvisation and composition skills more than anything. You can apply things you've learned easily and see instantly if they work or how to make them work.
You can use backing tracks but they can be stale. They are a great help but unless you make your own you won't be able to adjust them easily, so they are more limiting than a real musician. I find once you play over a certain backing track you can get stuck with the same ideas and you stop learning off it.
A great trick to solo ideas is to record yourself and criticise when you listen back, or even get someone else to. Then have another go and try and fix what you didn't like. After a few takes you should have developed a solo that works for you.

[Vision]

Originally Posted by guitarplayerone

It's hard for me to believe that if you know
a) you key signatures
b) chord function
c) the major scale and all of it's modes
d) the minor scales and all of their modes
e) every note on the fretboard cold

I actually know all that stuff, and I cant improvise a solo to save my ass! (I signed up for guitar lessons next week.... I need someone to put it all together for me).

[Bound]

Originally Posted by Vision

I actually know all that stuff, and I cant improvise a solo to save my ass! (I signed up for guitar lessons next week.... I need someone to put it all together for me).

You know what helped me with this (as I'm self taught)

I'd take a scale or even just a finger position at first and I'd riff off in it, until I find something I think would work for soloing ( or something maybe not so suiting) and I'd record it and jam on it for a while. Sometimes you get some licks, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get stuck in a rut so badly you get super pissed and make your fingers move in different ways.

I think the thing that helps me most with phrasing is playing other peoples solos and super-imposing some of their lick ideas on my practical knowledge of the guitar.

Some intermediate solos that have awesome phrasing to be studied:
LOG's Walk With Me in Hell
Mastodons Crystal Skull
Opeths Godheads Lament.

Not that I'm McSolopants, or anything. But these things help/are helping me.

[ArchAngel1024]

I've become good at improv in a few scales (blues m, pentatonic M/m, ionian, aeolian, some harmonic m) my only issues now are relating lead to melody (playing in the V works well) and writing a few more songs before June.

[lambofhowe]

Originally Posted by ArchAngel1024

I've been playing for a few years now, and have posted several times on various items in the past here.

However, as much theory and practice I put in, I can't seem to grasp advanced solos as well as I'd like to be able to.

So I come to you, collective internet, in hopes that I can assemble your knowledge of soloing and soloing strategies to create some bastardization of musical knowledge.

Thanks in advance

If if it's real SOLOING you're talkin about and not wanky guitar shredder licks, best advice I can give is just to try to feel a melody when you're playing over a chord progression. It's great to practice technique so you can totally rip when you feel it's appropriate but for me the best thing to do is just sit and jam out over backing tracks (could be a very simple self-made track) and just try and come up with stuff that's coherent. I wouldn't suggest using Cooley as a main influence, I would (and this is just me) listen to guys like Petrucci, Nuno Bettencourt (this guy is practically a must), Satch, EVH, Shawn Lane, Guthrie, Dime...all those guys really could feel out a melody and use it in a way that doesn't relate to just guitarists. hope this helps

[Jongpil Yun]

I have to say for guitar solos, I'm a big fan of the theme and variations format, where the theme would be the main vocal theme of the song (generally) and you apply various transformations to it in short (~4 bar) bursts.