Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselves

[JOLLY]

The solo is obviously in A. That doesn't really sound like a solo I would personally play if I was wingin' it in A. What kind of damn scale thing is Brad Gillis playing in this when the solo kicks in? What mode or whatever is he doing? I love it!!

Thanks, for all that can help me out with that stuff. I don't know how to do all those groovy sounding scales.

I learned at one time on bass, years ago....but hell, I can't remember all that sh!t. or whatever.

Oh yeah, I love it right before the song jams, and Ozzy says,

Hey, what's happening, man?

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselv

Probably just open harmonics being wanked with the tremolo. Maybe a few fretted notes here and there, whammied double-stop bends around the middle of the neck, that sorta thing.

 

[aleclee]

Re: Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselv

I mainly heard pentatonics and whammy wankin' but overall, that song has kind of a Phrygian feel to me.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselv

I keep listening to it over and over, so my take on it keeps changing. Here is where I stand now: He sort of starts off with a scale that has a b2, b3, b6, natural 6th, and b7 in it. (Due to the nature of cross-key harmonica, the song has a natural 6th in it on the main harmonica riff, harmonically speaking. But it has a b6 harmony on the verse guitar part. In the solo, the guitarist incorporates some of each type of 6th.) But before long he's just sort of wanking around doing whatever, starting on and around the 5th note of the key and sloppily working his way down to the area around the tonic as he leans on the vibrato, throwing in some open noise notes here and there. Due to his heavy vibrato use, there's no real melodic sense to it, and it has just about every note there is in it (and some in between), so you can't really say that it is utilizing any one scale. It's more an atonal and arhythmic noise solo than anything. I am 99.9% sure that nobody in the band was thinking anything about the musical theory behind the song when it was composed, or when it was performed with this particular band. I'm pretty sure he just started off following the basic melodic and harmonic patterns found in the song, then just sort of said screw it, I'm gonna make a bunch of noise.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselv

Thanks fellas!!

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Alright You Theory Guys, Scale Knowers, Or Whatever In The Hell You Call Yourselv

Good rock players outline the chord tones in their solos.
Songs rarely play over a single chord, and oftentimes change key. Make sure you can follow that structure and let that dictate where you go. Dont just say "oh yeah this is in A, so ill noodle around in A pentatonic all night"....even tho that can work for some (limited) stuff.
This approach should help learning any solo, not just this one.
However, even if you do take the caveman "ill just noodle in A" approach, you can embellish the basic scale with some choice blue notes.