How to Develop a soloing style....

[Andrew Lamprecht]

I need some help dudes.... developing some sort of my own rock solo style. It is not a technique deficiency or anything... I just don't know what I want.

I can play blues fine, all I did is take some techniques from my favorite players and got something I was happy with... Rock is a little more difficult for me....

I would do the same but my 3 rock guitarists I listen to the most don't have much of a soloing style that I like.

What can I do because I have no idea what I want but I feel I should have a solo... or should I just skip them?

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

The 3 guitarists I listen to in terms of rock mostly are Glen Buxton...

2:15... not bad but doesn't fit my rhythm style well


2:50... maybe not what I want... I don't know...


And then Iommi. I like his soloing style but maybe not in my rhythm stuff....






..




My rhythm is pretty heavy and simple, like mosh music haha... and then usually before certain parts I will do some twisty wierd single note stuff....

the beginning is what I mean by mosh type stuff


Twisty wierd stuff lol 3:25


I don't know... that is the best I can describe my rhythm style... any help?

 

[CTN]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

best way to develop your own soloing style is to listen to and play as many different kinds of things as possible. Find out what sounds you like and gravitate more towards, then get better at those, then expand those.

Idolizing seriously amazing guitarists also helps, i think. not necessarily super shredders, but great guitarists with serious chops, phrasing and technique, or just unique styles.

Iommi is a good start. He has such great phrasing, and a great sense of rhythm and timing. Simple stuff though, he mostly bums around pentatonic licks with some cool passing notes, like a lot of other guitarists from that era.

But really the best way is just keep practicing. become familiar with basic scales/modes and learn how they interact with each other. Always focus on creating great sounding melodies, rather than string mashing and playing ultra fast.

My soloing heroes:
Iommi (for being able to write awesome solos/melodies)
David Gilmour (quality, not quantity)
SRV (for pure expressiveness)
Marty Friedman (great combination of sizzling chops and wildly expressive, exotic note choices)
Joe Bonamassa (for being able to do everything the guys above do)

 

[Matt42]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Don't limit yourself to just your three favorite pickers. Listen to as many different guitarists as you can, in as many different genres as you can. I think it's especially helpful to check out players and music from outside your comfort zone. Case in point, Zakk Wylde and John 5. Both players are expert chicken and hybrid pickers (fingers and pick). Both techniques are more traditionally used in country guitar, but they both use them to play metal rhythms and leads, and it definitely helps to define their respective styles.

Another suggestion I hear a lot is to listen to other instrument's solos. This has definitely helped me, as I listen to a lot of bluegrass and country, so I hear a lot of fiddle solos, banjo solos, pedal steel solos, etc. Wind instruments are great too, and even piano/organ can help in this regard. I'm normally against learning licks verbatim, preferring instead to develop my own, but this is one instance where I find it really helpful. I've learned a lot of mandolin, banjo and fiddle licks on the guitar, and it has definitely affected the way I approach solos.

Here are some players that have helped to shape my own style, maybe one or two will spark something for you, I'll list the non-guitar players separately with their respective instruments:

Warren Haynes
Eric Clapton
Vince Gill
Bryan Sutton
Norman Blake
Jimmy Herring
Albert Lee
Vince Herman
Lowell George
Zakk Wylde
Paul Barrerre
Tyler Grant
Mark Knopfler
Chet Atkins (check out his CD with Mark Knopfler!)
James Burton
B.B. King
Tony Rice
Jerry Garcia
Santana
T-Bone Burnett
Darrell Scott
Guthrie Trapp

Fiddle:
Sam Bush
Stuart Duncan (there's a fiddle solo at 2:30 that is absolutely mind blowing, and you wouldn't know it was a fiddle if you weren't looking at him playing it, it sounds like an electric guitar)
Casey Driessan
Jason Carter

Banjo
Bela Fleck
Andy Thorn
Mark Vann - this guy is one of my favorite soloists of all time, so he deserves two videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hI72A3Bgbo this video was his last performance before succumbing to skin cancer almost exactly 10 years ago. Another great video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsf3MgSymNY Also featured in these videos Vince Herman - Guitar and Drew Emmitt - Mandolin)

Mandolin
Drew Emmitt
Sam Bush

Dobro/Lap Steel
Jerry Douglas - this guy has been recorded on over 2k albums, you've probably heard him play and didn't even know it.

Sorry for the expansive list, I like making lists like this and got a bit carried away. I actually had to restrain myself from finding a youtube video for everyone!

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Mmm hmm. What these guys have said.

Some wear their influences on their sleeve, some meld it perfectly with the sound in their head.

Either way, play what you feel and not what you think you should. If soloing's not your thing, so what? Have fun and make some sweet sounds!

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

juts play the crap out of your guitar. If you are not in a band play along to backing tracks. Memorize the solos of guitaists you like. Learn about how to string arpeggio and scale tones over different chord progressions. Play a lot. Your style will automatically develop as you go.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Take one scale and play it with as many phrasing variations as you can. Doesn't matter which scale. Do it mechanically in perfect synch with a metronome set to whatever speed you like, then imagine it in a Swing/Jazz/BeBop context with different accents in different places, then imagine it as each note being part of a melodic vocal section (mix of whole notes and half notes and quarter/eighth, or just play the 1,3,5,7,9 as whole notes and the 2,4,6,8,10 as half notes, or whatever you prefer).

Arpeggiate the scale playing only one note of it on each string (can be a 5-fret box form or a 7-fret rectangle, or your choice), in any phrasing you choose.

Don't limit yourself by just going from lowest to highest or highest to lowest. Play around in the middle. Start low, go to the middle, go back half way, then halfway past the middle, then back to the middle, then to the highest.
Start in the middle, and work your way to either end.

Play the intro to Sweet Child O Mine in various phrasings - normal, "Country-fied", Jazzy, Megadeth.

Doesn't matter if the notes of the scale you choose fit within the context of a given style's chord progressions - you can adjust that later. Right now you're simply exploring the vast possibilities that simple changes in phrasing offer.

 

[LatsMcGee]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

The biggest influences on my soloing were Hendrix, Clapton, Andy Summers, Greg Ginn, Dr Know from Bad Brains, Robert Fripp, Jeff and Kerry King from Slayer, Andres from Sepultura, and Gaz from Cathedral....Whenever I sit down and start writing guitar solos I always hear these guys playing in head......an eceltic group I know......

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

You can also start with just doing complimentary open-string harmonics, then build a melody you're happy with from that. Or you should be able to hear a melody in your head that is suggested by the song as a whole.

Then again, some things don't need a solo.

 

[brunogio]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

The solo generally has to fit over the changes that are being played so think about what you hear happening when you listen to the section that the solo will go over.

This will get easier as you listen to more music and different instrument style. It also helps when you learn solos because those give you ideas over what works over which chords.

I guess the more you do this, the more you'll develop your own trick bag. You find which scales have certain characters, which arpeggios you can use over the changes and include substitutions, how to leave the notes in the chord being played and resolve back, how to slide in or bend into a particular tone etc.

Over time you'll hear what you want to play and you'll have developed enough "go to" licks of your own to employ.

It's a lifelong journey

 

[lpmarshall]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

I know very little about musical theory. What broke me out of major/minor pentatonic stuff was using a looper. I'd put a few chords together and try some new stuff. After awhile I started discovering new scales by ear. I couldn't tell you what the hell they are, but it's been a good addition to the arsenal.

 

[LatsMcGee]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Another huge influence on my soloing was Wes Montgomery, I took lessions in a shop as well as from my uncle when I was learning and I learned so much Wes from my instructor that I burned out on him....

 

[aleclee]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Rather than learning to play a bunch of different random stuff, my advice would be to listen to a bunch of stuff and find some role models, not just in players but in songs/solos. Figure out what you like as far as solos, techniques, licks or phrases and then learn/practice that. As you continue doing that, it'll become part of your musical DNA.

Another piece of advice I'd offer is to embrace your idiosyncrasies. Maybe your technique imparts a distinctive timbre, or there are certain bits you tend to inject into your playing. If your ambition is truly to sound like Andrew Lamprecht, you need to embrace those idiosyncratic touch points in your playing because those are really what are going to make folks recognize your playing.

I have a buddy who recently got upset because he realize that, when practicing scales, he applied a vibrato to the last note as he sustained that. Rather than embracing that as part of his personal style, he worked to stop doing it so he'd only apply vibrato "when the song called for it". Personally, I feel like he over-thinks such things. He's an analytical guy who finds himself looking for the right mode to play over a chord. In contrast, I'm doing all I can to get my brain out of my playing. Personally, I can't find inspiration when I'm thinking that much.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

I think that it's important to be able to impose CONSCIOUS CONTROL over your playing. Sometimes I am completely unhinged and lose track of where I am on the fretboard but will feel my way and use muscle memory to iron everything out, but I tend to play my best material when I am on a conscious track, and I can plan developments because of how aware I am of key centers/chord changes/rhythm patterns/hits.

Listen to other instruments besides guitar. I find that guitar is an instrument that lends itself to many cliches, the visual grid, the bending, doing what is easy to the hands. Listen to your favorite MELODIES, sax players, trumpet players, classical music, etc. Be able to understand where a solo is going when you listen to it. Sing along with yourself when you play over songs, then try to play what you;re singing.

To become a LYRICAL soloist you have to bridge many gaps between your mind's ability to autopilot and improvise melodies, and being able to transfer it effectively to the guitar. Do everything in your power to fill this gap. DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN BULL**** AND IDEAS! So much guitar music is filled with muscle memory repeater licks and ambiguous melodies that have nothing to do with what the player is humming in his head.

Recognize your internal melodic flow and build upon it by expanding the palette of harmonies that you can imply, use just arpeggios, just scales, just altered scales, just triads, be musical with all of it.

 

[9unslin9er]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

To really be a melodic soloist, you have to think of guitar playing from the perspective of a vocalist.

A singer can take the same melodic line and either change their phrasing of alter the lyrics.

Think of the riff as the chorus of a singer, and the solo as the verse. You don't always have to do a million notes but you do have to keep things interesting by both instilling something catchy but also something that mixes things up.

If you want to get a good example of melodic playing in general, grab a few J-Rock cds. They're not usually pyrotechnic heavy, but they have great lines that otherwise cover the mediocre vocals,

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

To me, it's all about ear. Thinking something up in your head, and being able to play it right off the bat. That just takes time with the guitar, and it is IMHO the only reason to learn scales. Not so you can follow them out of sheer rote muscle memory when you play, but so you train your ear as to what different intervals sound like. Do what you can to develop your ear, man. I'd start like so. Have a friend play a tonic note, and then another note after it, until you can perfectly tell which interval the second note is. Once you can do that, you can do it in reverse too. You hum a note, then another, and you will know where to put your fingers to make those notes appear through the amp. It's a boneheadedly basic (and boring) as it gets, but the skills you learn from it are nearly everything IMO.

 

[alex1fly]

Re: How to Develop a soloing style....

Get some loops, improv over them. Figure out how to entertain yourself for minutes on end. Maybe its scorching leads, maybe its doing a bunch of different rhythms on one note, maybe its arpegiating through the notes of the chords and switching up the rhythms.

Some of my best solos come from starting with one note and sticking with it for 20-30 seconds. I focus on making the rhythm exciting. Once that vibe is established, and I'm still doing it, I'll add it one more note and go between the two in a cool rhythm. By about a minute in, I'm rocking all over the place thanks to that simple groove I established at the beginning.

Solos don't need to be anything more than simple grooves, in my opinion. They certainly can be, but for me, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that groove