Gorehound’s Roots Guitar Tips

-         the easiest, most obvious way to create your first guitar solo is to copy someone else’s solo and change one of the variables. Another good way is to take a solo from another instrument, trumpet, fiddle or piano. Chuck Berrys style, most of his riffs are taken from Piano parts. Just listen to Louis Jordan. Jimi Hendrix, is another good example. He played with Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. You can pretty well pinpoint when he  put all of his influences together to form his own style. Eric Clapton, same thing. He didn’t start playing until he was 17. Early Bluesbreakers recordings, he sounds technically good, but you can tell he’s playing Freddie and Albert King riffs note for note almost. Then Cream, suddenly he has a unique consistant style that is instantly recognizable.

-         you should be able to play the rhythm/chord pattern, that you’re soloing over, in your sleep. Pay close attention to the transition from playing rhythm, into the solo and back to playing rhythm.

-         find  players you want to sound like and study them. After analyzing several players styles, take what you like to form your own style. Dont obsess over copying everything a player does. Take the essence of their playing, not the actual notes.

-         Scales and boxes  are not the secret to building  solos, they offer safe-notes to use.

-         Try humming or whistling a spontaneous melody, along w/  a chord pattern( it’s good to do this away fr your instrument)

-         Be conscious of tempo and the timing of  the solo/melody, don’t be afraid to leave breathing spaces

-         Rhythm is more important than notes/melody, overall. A tasteful  player w/ a good sense of rhythm, will produce a much more listenable solo, than a shredding, scaling, technical guitarist  who overwhelms the song, and the listener, by  showing off. If the solo is more important to a guitarist, than the overall song, including all the other parts, bass, harmonies, percussion, the song suffers. The song is the entire point to playing an instrument, not just a vehicle to play on top of.

-         Experiment, try one or two note solos, one string solos, one finger solos, blind folded, try playing a solo using 2^nd, 3^rd and 4rth(pinkie) fingers of left hand, play along with whatever comes on the radio.

-         Be aware of shapes, patterns in fingering scales or solos. Learn to number the intervals I-VII using the Nashville numbering system.

-         Once you build up a vocabulary of original or copied riffs, you’ll start to develop confidence to improvise. Everybody hits bad notes occasionally, but we’re not surgeons or formula 1 drivers, no one dies, when we screw-up. A pro will keep playing and turn a mistake, into something new. Remember when you hit an off note, don’t stop. There is usually a good sounding note on each side of the sour note. Practice recovering from off notes.

-         The Eureka moment for soloing, and improvising, was when I could finally play riffs that I heard in my head. It took 4 or 5 years of lessons(and teaching myself), but eventually, I could play what I was thinking. You have to think, in terms of what we’re capable of, of course, you develop a comfort zone. This is the point when you no longer have to learn note for note, and copy other players. This when your own unique style begins to grow.

-         Other important lesson for soloing (or rhythm) is thinking of the riff in a linear way. As if you were playing it on one string, or on a keyboard.  This helps to see the relationships of notes.

-         Don’t play every riff you know, every time you get a chance to solo. Save some for the next song or solo.

-         Don’t try to play the hardest, most technically challenging solo possible. There’s no point to playing over peoples heads. Average listeners do not appreciate technical stuff. They want a memorable melody  that they can hum.

-         Some players put as much effort into arranging a solo, as a bandleader puts into arranging the whole song. Some wing it.

How long should a solo be?

-shorter the better

-the listener shouldn’t be wondering when the solo ends.

-anything that’s not supporting the song, the feeling/atmosphere is superfluous

-does it sound tacked-on, just there to fill time, has the player obviously run out of things to say?

-the longer a solo is, the more it needs a beginning, a middle and an ending.

-always leave the best part of the solo towards the end

-when playing lead solos, on 12-bar progressions, be sure that each successive section, is more exciting, interesting and dynamic than the preceding ones.

-if you’re in a situation, where you are the only guitarist, with no other chording instruments (keyboards, ect.), arranging solos is especially tricky, because you have to stop playing rhythm, and suddenly all you have behind you is bass and drums. This can make your solo sound weak, the trick is to play very full sounding, rhythmic solos, or learn to play lead and rhythm at the same time. Building solos around chords helps too. Arpeggios are a good trick, to create space. Take advantage of open strings, playing with open tunings makes you aware of those open strings.

-believe it or not, not every song requires a guitar solo, if it doesn’t fit, don’t add it

-Dont just play a bunch of riffs stuck together. Play one riff and expand on it. Flesh it out. Practice creating tension and resolving it.

-When you find a good riff, make it part of you. Play it until you cant stand playing it any more. It should be effortless, yet sound like you really mean it.

When you find your solos becoming boring or predictable, change your soloing habits. If you catch yourself playing the same licks out of habit, do something differently. Use different techniques, sounds, tunings, picking styles, try doing the opposite of whatever’s boring you.

This also means that you’re not pushing yourself hard enough, to explore new sounds and pick up new skills. The better a player you become, the easier it is to extract usable knowledge from other players, arrangers and songwriters.