# How do I stop my solos sounding bluesy!?



## Kraid (May 14, 2012)

All my solos sound bluesy... even when they're supposed to be death metal inspired.. I often dabble in the minor melodic and pentatonic scales but I can't escape their awful, boring sound!

What can I do? I've never been a good soloist, but I'm getting fed up.. My compositions demand decent solos! Thanks for looking. All hints/tips are appreciated.


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## leftyguitarjoe (May 14, 2012)

The diminished and harmonic minor scales.

Learn those and you can play darker sounding solos and 95% of all metal.


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## celticelk (May 14, 2012)

Play wider intervals: fourths and fifths between notes instead of thirds. Play fewer triplets and more sixteenth notes. Avoid the b3-to-root and b5-to-5 resolutions, which sound almost unavoidably bluesy. Use non-minor-pentatonic color notes: minor and major seconds, minor and major sixths, and the major seventh. Learn non-blues-sounding solos and analyze their melodic and harmonic content.

Alternately, embrace your bluesy side, and fuck anyone who tells you it's not metal enough.


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## right_to_rage (May 14, 2012)

This thread should be in the Theory and Technique section I'm pretty sure.

Beyond the use of exotic scales aside from pentatonic and minor, I think that bluesy guitar playing is mostly based in the feel. Blues and Death Metal require very different ways of feeling the beat, the latter is much more metronomic and strict to the pulse.


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## ArtDecade (May 14, 2012)

Play your blues like this guy.


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## Rook (May 14, 2012)

Bending up to the tonic and pentatonics.

Diminished scales will sounds more metal instantly, but the problem I had with them is it became all I did


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## Stealthdjentstic (May 14, 2012)

Learn a necrophagist solo if you want a good example of how to write a solo that abuses the harmonic minor and diminished scales.


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## celticelk (May 14, 2012)

A couple of other things you might try:

Bend differently. Someone above suggested bending into the root; try also bending from the b2 into the b3 and then back down, or pre-bend into the b6 and then drop back down to the 5. Attach other articulations to your bends: try bending and releasing, and then slide to a new note while sustaining. See whether you prefer sliding into the note you just bent to (a ghost note effect, if the bend is done quickly), or up to an even higher note, or down to a lower note (something like a whammy-dive effect). Mix bends with taps: bend a whole-step, tap a higher note, and then release the bend while sustaining the tapped note. Chain bends: bend and release a half-step, then quickly bend a whole step to your target note and hold.

Alternately, don't bend at all - limit your articulations to hammers, pulls, and taps. Try using different open strings as pedals: D or G over an E minor riff, for example.

Move pentatonic sequences through diminished-chord roots. Play a simple pentatonic run in E minor, and follow it with a pentatonic run based on one of the other notes in the E diminished-7th chord: G, Bb, or C#. Shift back and forth between E and this other key center for contrast, or move your idea through all four keys in sequence to move up or down the neck. Resolve to chord tones in E minor, ideally by a half-step move.


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## JStraitiff (May 14, 2012)

Avoid pentatonics.. They are after all referred to as "The Blues Scale" lol.

When i write solos for my music i dont think about theory, instead i focus exclusively on melody. So i listen to the progression i have to solo over and i devise a melody in my head and then translate it onto the guitar. Later you can add frill to spice it up.


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## Konfyouzd (May 14, 2012)

Get out of the pentatonic box


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## steve1 (May 14, 2012)

^ this.

I've spent years in that comfort zone. It's still my comfort zone but I'm breaking free. Back when I had lessons my teacher would end every lesson with a blues jam, and it just stuck with me. I'm trying to find the same comfort in a range of other scales. It's a hard habit to break but is just a case of practice and ignoring the urge to use those all too familiar positions.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 15, 2012)

Kraid, got a chord progression? A GP file, or perchance a recording?


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## Oxidation_Shed (May 15, 2012)

Phrygian mode of the harmonic minor scale = instant Nile 

But seriously, are we talking Pat from Cannibal Corpse or Muhammad from Necrophagist? Both are very different sounds but both are very death metal

If it's the former, concentrate on dissonances with any established key and get as many angular, chromatic licks in there as possible to give it a jarring and harsh sound (angular meaning taking large leaps between successive notes if you didn't know).

If it's the later, well, exotic scales are the way to go. Here you should be creating dissonances that resolve in ways that one would not expect (try resolving to the b5 to the minor 6th for example - okay not really a resolution but it'll sound 10000000x less bluesy than resolving to the 5th, avoid that at all costs!).

Or, as was suggested, stick with the blues: it never did Carcass any harm


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## Kraid (May 15, 2012)

By death metal, I'm talking about Opeth style death metal, although I do love Muhammed Suicmez's style of solos! But I'll give the phrygian mode a shot! I am no music god.. but what do you mean by chromatic? Do you mean by like notes just semitones apart?

Also, I do have a GP6 file of which I wish to solo over.


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## Konfyouzd (May 15, 2012)

JStraitiff said:


> Avoid pentatonics.. They are after all referred to as "The Blues Scale" lol.
> 
> When i write solos for my music i dont think about theory, instead i focus exclusively on melody. So i listen to the progression i have to solo over and i devise a melody in my head and then translate it onto the guitar. Later you can add frill to spice it up.



Good call. I try to do something similar. 

Basically I either try to sing a counter melody to what's going on in my head and then play that back, or I try to play a solo that follows a similar modal progression to the melody. To me it ends up sounding like some distant relative of the melody with a shit ton of embellishments. 

That or I will try to come back to the melody--or some piece of it, at least--periodically. I've found that this can help when you don't really know what to play kind of like when rappers do the "Yea... What?!... Holla!" bullshit in the middle of a verse. It's filler that sounds good. Obviously coming back to the melody constitutes a bit more than filler, but it's not just you shredding out all your licks at once off the top of your head.

Returning to the melody can help to give you some cool structure and allow you to space your cool licks out so that it seems like you're kickin' ass for way longer. 

So I guess the best advice I can give you is:

If it's someone else's song, learn the melody.

If you just want to improv regardless of the melody of the actual song, establish a melody of your own and build your solo off that. If your melody is bluesy sounding then you screwed yourself right out the gate.


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## Kraid (May 15, 2012)

Thank you very much for your response.. it's appreciated. I like the idea of singing a melody in my head, then loosely following it and ornament it after. I will definitely give it a go!


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## G27DUDE (May 24, 2012)

If you haven't yet, learn the modes of the major scale. These "harmonic, melodic" scales are cool but it makes everything so much easier when you can relate them directly back to the major scale. Idk if you have already done this though. If you solo in locrian, it should sound anything but bluesy.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 24, 2012)

I don't know about that. I can make locrian sound bluesy very easily.


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## K3V1N SHR3DZ (May 24, 2012)

celticelk said:


> Move pentatonic sequences through diminished-chord roots. Play a simple pentatonic run in E minor, and follow it with a pentatonic run based on one of the other notes in the E diminished-7th chord: G, Bb, or C#. Shift back and forth between E and this other key center for contrast, or move your idea through all four keys in sequence to move up or down the neck. Resolve to chord tones in E minor, ideally by a half-step move.




This sounds interesting as fuck.  Please elaborate/demonstrate!!!


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## VBCheeseGrater (May 24, 2012)

I have similar issues. When i really want to get away from bluesy stuff i reach for this...

Arabic Scale (sounds similar to harmonic minor, but stronger middle eastern tone)
in C - C, Db, E, F, G, Ab, and Bb

or in steps - Root - .5 - 1.5 - .5 - 1 - .5 - 1


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## Pooluke41 (May 24, 2012)

G27DUDE said:


> If you haven't yet, learn the modes of the major scale. These "harmonic, melodic" scales are cool but it makes everything so much easier when you can relate them directly back to the major scale. Idk if you have already done this though. If you solo in locrian, it should sound anything but bluesy.



Just because you learn the diatonic modes, it doesn't mean it won't stop sounding bluesy.

It's really dependant on the chord you play it over; eg: B Locrian played over a C maj 7 chord would sound pretty stable and normal compared to playing B locrian over a B minor7b5, which would sound quite nasty. 

One thing you can do is play a diminished run over a Dom7b9, to do this you play a dominant 7 or a dominant 7b9 and a semi-tone above the root (If you're playing the chord in it's root position) you can play a diminished run.

Here's an example

E|-2|
B|-0|
G|-2|
D|-1|
A|-2|
E|--|

That's a B7, you could outline the B7 Chord or play a B7 Arpeggio like this;

E|------------------|
B|-------------3-4-|
G|-------2-6-4-----|
D|-----4-----------|
A|-2-6-------------|
E|-----------------|

But sometimes you want to add tension, so you could play a diminished run like so;

E|------------------|
B|------------------|
G|---------5-8-----|
D|-----4-7---------|
A|-3-6-------------|
E|-----------------|


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 24, 2012)

Pooluke41 said:


> Just because you learn the diatonic modes, it doesn't mean it won't stop sounding bluesy.



Exactly.



> It's really dependant on the chord you play it over; eg: B Locrian played over a C maj 7 chord would sound pretty stable and normal compared to playing B locrian over a B minor7b5, which would sound quite nasty.


This is what I don't like about how people perceive chord-scale theory. B locrian is B locrian, and Bø7 is its tonic seventh chord. Cmaj7 is a dissonance in B locrian. If you have a progression that goes C&#8710; Dm7 Bø7 C&#8710;, it's not C ionian, D dorian, B locrian, C ionian - it's all C major. In my last post (in C locrian), Cø7 sounds correct as a tonic chord. I omitted the fifth because it's impossible to get all the notes in the chord unless you're double-handed tapping, but the voicing R b3 b5 b7 R is actually more sonorous than what I have written.


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## celticelk (May 24, 2012)

kgad0831 said:


> This sounds interesting as fuck.  Please elaborate/demonstrate!!!



Since I'm at work, I don't have the opportunity to record an example, but in short, it's all about superimposing more distantly-related pentatonics against a static harmony (like a consistent riff) to produce various degrees of out-ness. Let's stick with the E minor example. If I've got a chugging E-minor rhythm riff, I can play in a minor pentatonic rooted on any of the four notes in the E diminished-7th chord: E, G, Bb, C#. These produce the following effects:

E minor pentatonic (E-G-A-B-D): you know what that's about.

G minor pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F): the pitches here can probably be most directly related to E Locrian or E altered. This produces a darker sound than standard minor pentatonic, but nothing that's too terribly dissonant against a prevailing E minor harmony. Kirk Hammett does some of this; check out the brief passage right after the bend at 5:03:

 

Bb minor pentatonic (Bb-Db-Eb-F-Ab): this one is screwy, as it mostly relates to E Lydian (Bb is the #11, Db/C# is the 6, Eb/D# is the 7, Ab/G# is the 3), with the very dark b9 (F) thrown in for good measure. Related to *its own notes*, of course, this is a very vanilla pitch set - it's just minor pentatonic! - but placed against a root a tritone away, the effect is very exotic. If you're used to slipping a b5 into your minor pentatonic licks to spice them up a little, you have the advantage here that the b5 of Bb is E, which is the *root* of our prevailing rhythm riff, so you can actually resolve to the b5 in a Bb blues lick and have it be simultaneously way out (melodically, compared to the Bb tonality you've been playing in) and utterly "in" (as the root of the prevailing harmony).

There's a segment of Testament's "So Many Lies" solo where Alex Skolnick plays something in this vein, working some very "major" notes against a rhythm vamp that's mostly E5/F5. Check it out at 3:21:



C# minor pentatonic (C#-E-F#-G#-B): this is the same pitch collection as E major pentatonic, so you can work a Hendrix-y set of moves here, and minor pentatonic licks that resolve to the b3 will land on the E against our E rhythm track, so there's some good potential for bringing things back inside with this one.

Note that we started with the prevailing tonality (E minor), moved through diminished/altered sounds, then into very brightly major sounds, then into a more conventional rock/country major, then back into the original tonality, all by simply transposing our boring old pentatonic minor scale. This doesn't really substitute for learning the "original" scales - I'd suggest that you learn how to play E Lydian, rather than just playing Bb minor pentatonic over E whenever you want a Lydian-ish sound - but it's an easy way to spice up a solo that can take you pretty far outside of the blues realm that the OP wanted to leave behind.


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## VBCheeseGrater (May 24, 2012)

^^^ dude, absolutely great info..thanks!


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## celticelk (May 24, 2012)

Note also that since every minor pentatonic scale contains a min7 arpeggio, this means that you can throw a quick burst of "out" playing into your solos by sweeping that arpeggio from one of the more distantly-related pentatonics: link up a couple of E minor ideas with a swift Gm7 or Bbm7 sweep, for example. Or hold an Em arpeggio shape with your left hand (the one that goes 7899 on the top four strings, for example), and tap the same shape three frets higher (Gm) or six frets higher (Bbm). For *serious* fun, layer a two-note-per-string pentatonic shape in E with your left hand and in one of the more remote keys by tapping with your right hand - now you're getting into Buckethead territory. Think creatively. Just remember to resolve to the original tonality, and don't stay "out" for too long or you'll catch cold.


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## Grimbold (May 24, 2012)

Fun111 said:


> Bending up to the tonic and pentatonics.
> 
> Diminished scales will sounds more metal instantly, but the problem I had with them is it became all I did


eeyup


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## K3V1N SHR3DZ (May 24, 2012)

celticelk said:


> Bb minor pentatonic (Bb-Db-Eb-F-Ab): this one is screwy, as it mostly relates to E Lydian (Bb is the #11, Db/C# is the 6, Eb/D# is the 7, Ab/G# is the 3), with the very dark b9 (F) thrown in for good measure. Related to *its own notes*, of course, this is a very vanilla pitch set - it's just minor pentatonic! - but placed against a root a tritone away, the effect is very exotic. If you're used to slipping a b5 into your minor pentatonic licks to spice them up a little, you have the advantage here that the b5 of Bb is E, which is the *root* of our prevailing rhythm riff, so you can actually resolve to the b5 in a Bb blues lick and have it be simultaneously way out (melodically, compared to the Bb tonality you've been playing in) and utterly "in" (as the root of the prevailing harmony).





 Okay, I've kinda dipped my toes into this end of the pool messing around with implying C Lydian by using the B minor pentatonic 1/2 step below the root. (B, D, E, F#, A over C yields the M7, 2/9, 3, #4/#11, M6).


THANKS


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