[dougsteele]

dissect other player's solos. start with angus young and ace frehley, then go to eddie van halen. learn it all by ear, no tabs. you'll hate it at first, but then you'll come to enjoy the hard hours you've put in.

[Maniacal]

One thing that helped me was learning jazz on a regular basis. It really helps open up the neck a whole lot more and as jazz is all about phrasing and note choice soloing skill just develops along the way.

I think more important than knowing tonnes of theory is having a good inner ear.
Put on some backing track playing a simple chord like A minor then sing melodies and try and work them out on the guitar. Do this every day and you will think less in terms of "3 note per string scales" and more about just playing whats in your head.

If Allan Holdsworth can make a C major scale sound colorful and interesting, that just proves "Its not how many scales you know, its how you use them"

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by Maniacal

One thing that helped me was learning jazz on a regular basis. It really helps open up the neck a whole lot more and as jazz is all about phrasing and note choice soloing skill just develops along the way.

I think more important than knowing tonnes of theory is having a good inner ear.
Put on some backing track playing a simple chord like A minor then sing melodies and try and work them out on the guitar. Do this every day and you will think less in terms of "3 note per string scales" and more about just playing whats in your head.

If Allan Holdsworth can make a C major scale sound colorful and interesting, that just proves "Its not how many scales you know, its how you use them"

Agree 100%. The best part of studying jazz is that it gets you out of the thing a lot of shredders do where each part of the solo is just a showcase for a particular technique rather than a musical phrase, like they think 'tapping bit-fast picking bit, sweeping bit, blues lick, whammy bar bit...' and just string together a bunch of exercises they've practiced to death, rather than thinking in terms of developing motifs.

[Maniacal]

Absolutely. Which is why most "shredders" have crap songs, shit production, annoying vibrato and the phrasing of a train.

Too much focus on one thing. Usually because they want to impress other people. Which is fair enough if it makes them happy, but it wont make you a well rounded musician/artist.

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by Maniacal

Absolutely. Which is why most "shredders" have crap songs, shit production, annoying vibrato and the phrasing of a train.

Too much focus on one thing. Usually because they want to impress other people. Which is fair enough if it makes them happy, but it wont make you a well rounded musician/artist.

I see this with soooooooooo many musicians who could actually be really good if they worked on the right stuff, but instead they just have a few 'terror death licks' that they can reel off (but frequently can't do with a metronome, or over a set of changes) to impress people who don't play guitar, and after they've played those they're totally lost.

[stubhead]

Too much focus on one thing.

Time and again you'll hear good teachers recommend that you get out of your comfort zone and learn to play something you're not used to -
by definition, playing can only be boring if you're playing what you already know....

Paul Gilbert makes a point to include a classical piano piece transcribed for guitar on every album. Steve Vai throws in stuff from a dizzying array of places, possibly a result of his tenure with Frank Zappa. Learn the "Pink Panther" theme, learn a polka, learn "The Blue Danube Waltz", learn "chicken pickin"" (like Zakk Wylde & John 5). You don't have to love it (or plan a career in a polka band ), but it will show up in your playing somewhere and broaden and deepen it.

You'll have to listen to other stuff too to learn it - I can save you the time of even writing to Berklee School of Music, if you want to get in there you need to buy "Sonatas and Partitas" by J.S. Bach, the 2-CD set and the sheet music and get started now. It built up Petrucci & Morse, it can do you too.

I had posted a link to an amazing site with thousands of streaming concerts:
SugarMegs Streaming Server
Somebody posted that "there wasn't enough metal" - to be able to bypass that much music is no way to get better. There's dozens of Mahavishnu Orchestra & Zappa, Zeppelin & Mountain concerts - without those guys there wouldn't be metal as you know it, as Jeff Beck said recently nobody has ever gotten better than McLaughlin was back then. Check out MahavishnuOrchestra1972-05-15 and 1972-11-09 if you want to find out why metal bands still play in odd meters 35 years later.

[distressed_romeo]

Great advice, as usual.

One of the things that's really helped me recently is discovering Loreena McKennitt's music; I've been experimenting with using the e-bow to mimic her vocal phrasing, and harp-harmonics to cop some ideas from her harp playing.

[ArchAngel1024]

I've spent the last few weeks learning blues, studying Hendrix, SRV, and a few others, It's really improved my playing (especially with my fender). I'm going to follow Stub's advice and keep learning from other Genres and using techniques from each. I've also been reading Steve Morse's Articles in Guitar World, his articles are full of useful stuff.

[Vision]

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).

I just wanted to give a quick update:

I signed up for lessons and through lack of communications, they dropped me. So I called another music store to see about lessons and they were like "Yeah, call John... he will hook you up!" I call John and tell him my situation and we hooked up and he gave me a kick ass two-hour lesson.

Turns out, he was trained by -and good friends with- Paul "F-n" Gilbert! We touched on theory, C-A-G-E-D, modes, strength building, the "tension-resolution" of guitar playing, the importance of hammer-on/pull-offs, slides, vibrato, bends, and how to tell a story with your guitar! He even pointed out that my picking style (economy... I had no idea!) will limit my playing ability and how to effectively shift to true alternative picking. He is a huge Rusty Cooley fan and even started playing some of Rusty's sweep picking stuff!


I think I am in good hands...

[ArchAngel1024]

Originally Posted by Vision

I just wanted to give a quick update:

I signed up for lessons and through lack of communications, they dropped me. So I called another music store to see about lessons and they were like "Yeah, call John... he will hook you up!" I call John and tell him my situation and we hooked up and he gave me a kick ass two-hour lesson.

Turns out, he was trained by -and good friends with- Paul "F-n" Gilbert! We touched on theory, C-A-G-E-D, modes, strength building, the "tension-resolution" of guitar playing, the importance of hammer-on/pull-offs, slides, vibrato, bends, and how to tell a story with your guitar! He even pointed out that my picking style (economy... I had no idea!) will limit my playing ability and how to effectively shift to true alternative picking. He is a huge Rusty Cooley fan and even started playing some of Rusty's sweep picking stuff!


I think I am in good hands...

amazing, good luck man, and if you get in touch with Paul, let us know.



I've started working with solos differently, Like, I just know what to play now. The more recent tracks I've been working with have a little more flexibility, so it's easier to solo over them after listening a few times.

I've also found that I tend to count 4/4 like 3/4, 3/4, 2/4 or 5/8, 3/8. Which is weird to me. :emot: