Suggestions for taking solos

Jim Kaznosky

I play rhythm guitar in a band that bases itself around this style and at home, I can string some prewritten licks together to form a solo.

When I'm playing live, it all just kind of falls apart for me.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with the rest stroke, but clearly have a lot of work to do. With regards to solos, is there any breakthrough that anyone can share that helped you over the hump?

It's weird how I suddenly feel like I can't play guitar anymore.

Thanks

seeirwin

I'm contributing here as someone who has the same problems, and not someone who has completely overcome them to dazzle all onlookers.

For me, the key has been to just go for it. A major factor is relaxation (or lack thereof). I can sometimes feel everything locking up as I'm playing. When that happens, I slow it down to quarter notes or whatever and just try to relax. As I have taken more and more solos, this has (thankfully) become less and less of an issue. Now that I'm relaxed, the problem is just what to play... If it's nerves about playing in front of other people, just try to remember: if you can play any of this stuff (rhythm, lead, whatever), you can already do something that most people in the world can't do. Sure, if Bireli is in the audience, go ahead and have a heart attack. Otherwise, you are far and away your toughest critic. I have a weekly restaurant gig, and I have hit some serious clunkers; the patrons continue to smile and bop their heads, and have yet to exhibit any signs of noticing.

One last thing (Bireli again): the thing I love about that guy is that he really goes after it in his solos and doesn't always make it. Many of his crazy chordal sweep ideas don't end up clean and sometimes he doesn't "stick the landing" or whatever. But that's what makes his music interesting, and I appreciate that he is so adventurous.

Hope this helps...

Jim Kaznosky

This is definitely good food for thought.

Part of my mental block is playing with guys that are playing pretty great solos on their respective instruments. I don't want to be the guy that's playing garbled nonsense.

Michael Bauer

As the official Worst GJ Guitarist on Earth, I probably should add nothing, but I want to mention something that stuck with me from a few years back. I was at a jam at Django in June, and player after player ripped out blazing licks. Then it came to a player who did none of that. He played relatively few notes, but his right hand was really strong and every note sang out. His solos were very melodic, almost like they were alternative melodies that could be sung over the changes. Afterwards, he was the one guy people were going out of there way to compliment. His playing was memorable, unlike most of the bajillion shredders 16th-noting their ways through tune after tune.

If you develop a strong right hand and play very melodically, you won't need to play fast. As as you get faster the things you play will be ever so much more interesting for it. Hum a simple melody over a set of changes and then work it out until you can play it with conviction and power. It will help you develop a more melodic style when soloing, and you will sound different than most of the players.

adrian

jkaz wrote:

I play rhythm guitar in a band that bases itself around this style and at home, I can string some prewritten licks together to form a solo.

When I'm playing live, it all just kind of falls apart for me.

My two cents: A beautiful series of slow notes is a thousand times better than a sloppy series of fast notes! Don't feel pressure to play lots of notes -- beauty and musicality are more important than speed and virtuosity.

Adrian

Jim Kaznosky

All sage advice.

thrip

Playing prewritten solos you have learned rarely works in real playing situations, only when certain conditions are met i.e the exact chord progressions, tempo and feel you have learnt them over, with sufficient time for you to get in the right mindset in order to deliver them.

The key to becoming more fluent is to break down the solo into licks and then into short melodic motifs. See which chords they go over and practise approaching the lick at different tempi with as much rhythmic variation as possible, for example try offsetting it by playing it a quarter note early or a beat late. The aim is to be able to play the same sort of lick but in lots of different ways, and then you will be on your way to coping with the unexpected situation of real life improvising!

Lango-Django

A great topic for everyone to chime in on, and I hope everyone does! That will make this site more exciting. Some great posts above, and I agree with all of them.

I spend a lot of time studying Django's playing in detail, but when I go to solo, suddenly that all falls away., but I don't think it was time wasted.

But the one thing I'm trying to get that Django always had was his ability to stay right with the chords and not go meandering off into uncharted waters as I sometimes end up doing.

I'm starting to think that this may have been a result of him spending a fair bit of time practicing without any accompaniment... and I'm also starting to think that he carefully pre-planned a lot of his most dazzling licks at a slower tempo.

Our modern conception of jazz is that of improvisation invented on the spot, and while Django's recorded solos did have some of that, I think they also contained a lot of carefully planned tricks. It's still often hard for me to tell the difference in every single case, since Django's unusual fingering makes something that he may have naturally improvised something I would never have conceived of in a thousand years!

Anyway, my cunning plan for soloing (any Baldrick fans out there?) now involves practising some of the tunes I play unaccompanied and at slower tempos, so I can try to work out my own little licks and tricks on them...

I'll never play like Django, and I'll never think like Django, but he will always be my guiding star!

Will

klaatu

I couldn't agree more with Michael and Adrian.

Michael Bauer wrote:

His solos were very melodic, almost like they were alternative melodies that could be sung over the changes.

Stephane Wrembel once said in a class at Django in June that when you are improvising on a song, think of it as making up a new melody. He suggested actually singing your improvisations and then trying to duplicate what you sang, to get a melodic feel and avoid the syndrome of sounding like you are simply stringing licks together.

adrian wrote:

A beautiful series of slow notes is a thousand times better than a sloppy series of fast notes!

As to speed, some players with more technical skill than musicality will rip through a gazillion notes in a fraction of a second, and the result leaves some of us cold. Their attitude seems to be, why play just a few notes when I can play 1000? On the other hand, why play 1000 when just a few will do nicely. I always like to say that [name your favorite shredder] can blind you with his speed, but B. B. King can bend just one single note and bring you to tears.

One thing you didn't mention about your practice routine is whether you have been practicing with accompaniment, although you allude to going it alone as you go forward. I was having the same problem as you, I'd have a solo all worked out on a particular song, and when it came time to play with the band it would totally fall apart. In my case, I had been practicing alone, without any backup. Once, after working out a nice solo on Rose Room (some of it stolen), I tried it with Stephane's backing track. Guess what? Fell apart. The problem in my case was that I could do fine all by myself, but add instruments playing rhythm at a constant speed, with whom you have to keep up, and disaster struck. I've now gotten into the habit of spending a lot of my time working with backing tracks - it has made a big difference in my live playing.

Lango-Django

I've now gotten into the habit of spending a lot of my time working with backing tracks - it has made a big difference in my live playing.

Yeah, backing tracks have helped me too, Ben.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is that they too, have their limitations, and personally I've found that I can into a rut by depending on them solely.

So lately I practice with Band In A Box with everything shut off except the bass and drums, which seems to help force me to stick more closely to embellishing the chords... or sometimes I turn the tempo way slow to mess around with some different ideas before speeding BIAB up to normal tempo again.

I like Stephane Wrembel's suggestion of singing an alternative melody, but to be honest, I've never noticed that he or any of the other leading GJ players really follows that advice when soloing... even Django's approach to soloing was very rarely about stating an alternative melody.

The closest thing I can think of like to a truly "alternative melody" approach is in "Gypsy Fire" where Andreas Oberg offers a real good one for "Blue Bossa".

klaatu

Lango-Django wrote:

I like Stephane Wrembel's suggestion of singing an alternative melody, but to be honest, I've never noticed that he or any of the other leading GJ players really follows that advice when soloing...

True, but Stephane and Django and the other leading players are at a skill level far from that of the group Stephane was addressing at the time (myself included). The actual topic for the class was how to practice in an efficient and well-planned manner, and we got into talking about how to solo and how best to practice for soloing. The suggestion for thinking in terms of alternate melodies and singing was a way of getting us out of the syndrome of playing strings of licks, which in unskilled hands sound like ... well, strings of disjointed licks, which don't mesh into a unified solo.

He mentioned that he had studied at Berklee and of course had suffered through the whole modal thing, said he couldn't wait to be done with that, because modal playing struck him as too mechanical. This was in the context of talking about singing your solos - he said something like, "When I sing a solo, I don't think 'Gee, I think I'll sing in mixolydian today. I just sing, and it flows."

You're absolutely right about learning something at a slow speed first. You have to train your muscle memory to play correctly before worrying about speed. Funny thing, when something is played cleanly, it actually tends to sound faster than it really is.

Good idea about using Band in a Box. I should go find my BiaB discs and install it on the new computer for just that purpose. I've only got backing tracks for a subset of the tunes that I need to work on, and BiaB would be a good solution.

One thing that I've found helpful is software that slows down a track to whatever speed you find comfortable. I use Amazing Slow Downer for CDs and MP3s (and its DVD counterpart Ultimate DVD Player), and Transcribe is also popular, but I think Band in a Box comes with a program that does something similar.

Anyway, good luck with your practicing, and let us know how you are progressing.