Looking for some honest opinion and some advice

[Myaccount876]

Re: Looking for some honest opinion and some advice

Try to make leads like vocal melodies/phrases. If there's no vibrato, and you can't imagine someone singing it, the lead probably isn't going to be that great. Give the song a sense of direction with your note choices - are you building tension or relieving it? Are you going to speed up or slow down? Make your note choices convey the tonality of the song - is the song sad? Happy? Sappy? Clappy? Convey it with the leads, and make it sound like an actual melody - something memorable - that wasn't played on auto-pilot. Bends/Vibrato make or break a lead: imagine all of the classic/most memorable solos if they just played the straight notes instead of bending up to them, and if they just held a constant note without any vibrato. I guarantee those changes will make one of the best solos on record sound like some of the worst solos on record.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Looking for some honest opinion and some advice

One way to gain a bit more space and looseness in your solos would be to emulate a horn player. Literally, only play notes while you breathe out, and when you have to breathe in, stop. That forces you into saying phrases instead of a constant run of notes. As you get more into this idea, you'll start to see how long a phrase needs to be before-hand, so you can plan them out a bit more. That, plus having clearly defined starting and finishing notes will make the phrase more fitting to the chord it's going to land on.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Looking for some honest opinion and some advice

I've heard lots of guys talking about playing like a horn player...especially in terms of legato and mode choices. But that 'breathe out' line just hit me like a ton of bricks. 10/10

 

[Matt42]

Re: Looking for some honest opinion and some advice

Seriously, A+ tip right there!