Dude,
I believe you and I are primarily, lead guitarists by “training”. These days, I am a little more into exploring rhythm, after re-visiting the music of Jimi Hendrix. But do allow me to share something that is very close to my heart – lead playing.
When I first started on lead, I tried real hard to study all scales and modes, all lead playing techniques and every single article on lead playing that I can lay my hands on. After all that, I am very much stuck with the pentatonic box… and none of those music theory have been of any great help (don’t get me wrong, music education is important, but that’s also a huge problem for me).
So dude, knowing that I can’t progress much; I decided to surrender to fate.
Today, I build most of my solos on pentatonic. Pentatonic is probably the most versatile group of notes you can ever have within the musical scale. Blues, rock, metal, jazz – you can easily fit any major or minor pentatonic, sometimes both.
Having said that, it probably means that theory is not really significant for me……What makes a great solo then?
I’ve always thought the Solo of Death Award goes to the song Lonely in the Night by Eric Johnson from the album Venus Isle. You just gotta listen to it and tell me how you feel. I just don’t know how to describe it. It is my all time favourite solo.
Maybe, that’s what important to me in building a great solo. It has to tell a story. It has to stand out. It has to have melody, tone, harmony and emotion, plenty of emotion.
Of course, if I can’t describe what makes a great solo, here are some that will help me to do it:
- Mr. Crowley – Randy Rhoads
- Cry Me a River – Zakk Wylde
- Time – David Gilmour (in fact, anything by David Gilmour)
- The Spirit Carries On – John Petrucci
- Tornado of Souls – Mary Friedman
- Limelight – Alex Lifeson
- All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
- These Days – Ritchie Sambora
- Punch Me I Bleed – Alexi Laiho
- Wall of Denial – Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Stairway to Heaven – Jimmy Page
- Right Now – Eddie Van Halen
- Just Take My Heart – Paul Gilbert
There are many more of course. I did a quick mind scan and this 13 came up, maybe due to the immediate emotion they invoked. You may notice that some of my biggest heroes are missing here – Eric Clapton, Uli Jon Roth, Yngwie Malmsteen and many instrumentalists such as Satch and Vai. While doing this, the criteria were more towards song rather than instrumental. To fit a solo into a song and make it awesome is much more difficult than a whole instrumental of guitar solos.
To sum it all, I think the best solos come from deep within us. We reach down deep into our hearts, feel the song and play according to the emotion we feel. Whether it is a positive or negative kind of feel, as long as your heart approves it, whatever comes out will be awesome.
Stairway to Heaven solo was done on a Telecaster. Can you believe that?
Dude,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, thanks for sharing and hope you had a good CNY. I enjoy this post, as I think it sums up what we think about ourselves as lead guitarist. Myself just like you, am stuck in the pentatonic box, I make majority of my solos from that - but then again, some of the greats do it. Listen to BB King, Eric Clapton, Zakk Wylde, Dave Mustaine and a few others, and you won't feel so bad. Lists? I like lists. I think your list is fantastic. If you don't mind, allow me to add a few solos which changed my life forever;
1. Zakk Wylde - No More Tears
2. Marty Friedman - Symphony of Destruction
3. Mikael Akerfeldt - The Drapery Falls
4. David Gilmour - Comfortably Numb
5. Tony Iommi - NIB
6. Dimebag Darrel - Cemetery Gates
7. John Petrucci - Another Day
8. George Lynch - Kiss of Death
9. Kerry King/Jeff Hanneman - Angel of Death
10. Jake E Lee - Bark at the Moon
11. KK Downing/Glen Tipton - Beyond the Realms of Death
...and many more dude. If I were to go on, I will be adding stuff from Manowar, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Angra, Edguy, Queensryche, UFO and more. Of course anything from Iron Maiden, Testament, Kreator etc will also make the grade, but I can't be fussed to think too much now. But in short, yes all these guys form great inspirations, and these are the guys that brought us out of our shells and helped us develop. We may not be very close to what they are today, but for fleeting moments when we play their material, we get that short burst of excitement - and sometimes that feeling is just priceless.