Solos are my weak point, but how is this?

[jinxist]

Hey guys, Solos have always been a weak point for me...And I'm starting to push outside my comfort zone with them...Sometimes I find the solos I come up with sound kind of boring. Maybe can I get some pointers on them? My most recent solos are found in my newest track called Chaos Resonates Within Us at the 4:08 mark.

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/jinxist/chaos-resonates-within-us[/SC]

Any advice or critique is greatly appreciated!!

 

[Furyof]

I think it sounds great, The only thing I'd say is your vibrato is kind of weak if you know what I mean. It'd say work on that. I'm a noob myself when it comes to that kind of stuff. So yeah I feel you. I have been trying to get my vibrato up. From what I have found is to put your thumb at the top of the neck, like hold the top so you can get a good grip and then bend the string in a pivoting motion while using your thumb as the anchor. If that makes sense. It's hard to explain what I mean but I've found that to help my mine. The playing sounded real nice though. Just the vibrato imo was off. 3:25 is a good example of what I mean. That quick vibrato, It's something I wouldn't do. I don't mean to be brutal. I just like giving people straight feedback because that's what I'd want.

 

[TallestFiddle]

The lead at 3:24 is way too loud, and the tone is kinda awkward, put some reverb/delay on that. The part of the solo at 4:20 when the drums kick in is really cool, still too loud and needs reverb/delay IMO. The part at like 3:31 is cool melodically, but rhythmically its pretty boring, try to change things up a bit with your picking patterns, even if its a bit slower. I'd be careful with your bends, they sound kinda flat/sharp. I personally don't do bends in my solos because I'm not too good at it, it definitely takes some practice to get it down. The ending of the solo is a bit lackluster, but thats something thats definitely really hard to get down, so just do your best. Overall its a sick song, so keep up the good work!

 

[Anti_Leviathan]

Scales and arpeggios are your best friends when it comes to soloing on prog metal.

I'd say just keep practicing your chops and start learning some of your favorite solos. I know what your think "all the solos i want to play are beyond my skill". This maybe true but anything is playable if you play it slow enough. I find that when I'm coming up with solos I take things from other peoples work, not copying note for note but taking a lick or two and making it my own. Everyones writing process is different.

Hope this helped!

 

[noUser01]

Nice job man, sounds good! The two things that stuck out to me were your finger tone, and the way the solo develops, but I'll try to give more guidance than just that.

With your finger tone, you are playing the notes just fine but there's no passion in them, it's quite robotic. The goal is to make each note sound good, and not trying to cover it up with what the notes are or how fast they are played. If someone can't make a single note sound good, then their solo is probably just going to be a bunch of notes that don't sound good. I'd start by looking at your vibrato. It's rather weak and shrill sounding. Try using your wrist and rotating your arm. Plant your finger on a note on the fretboard and rotate your wrist like you're turning a key, rotating in a way that pulls the note down towards the floor. If you're using big arm movement or going along the length of the string you're probably not going to get the sound you want. Your vibrato should be vertical, not horizontal. Don't bend the string up, then back down, then up, then down etc. just let the rotation of your arm do the work for you.

Make damn sure that your vibrato is in time with the song too. Usually 8th notes works, but experiment with whatever works for the song. Practice doing wide and shallow vibrato and notice how different you can make a note sound with just vibrato. Some notes need a lighter, consistent 8th note vibrato and others need really wide, quarter note triplet vibrato, it all depends on the context.

The next thing is the contour of the solo. It needs to have a clear beginning, a clear middle, and a clear end. It is just like writing a book, if there's no build up and no climax then it's not really worth reading. You've got a lot of cool parts, but the energy of the solo stays the same the whole way through. That doesn't mean you can't start full throttle and stay that way through the whole thing, but you need to add interest, contrast and variation. The solo in my signature is very much a "balls to the wall" type solo but it's not just me shredding sextuplets through the whole thing, it follows the song in a dynamic way while still being in your face and "shreddy". It's not the best solo by any means, but hopefully that example helps you see what I mean.

Your playing is very "compartmentalized", which is totally fine, but you need to make sure you have good transitions between each part. Don't just go "Here's a pedal tone part for 4 bars. Now here's a tapping part for 8 bars." Create musical transitions between parts and make sure everything flows as best as possible. It's a miniature composition within the song, and should be treated as such. Along those lines, think about how a drummer uses drum fills to transition between parts. I find fast playing is usually best used in the same way a fill is used, going into a new section or rotation of 8 bars or whatever.

Work off the context of the song too, don't just go "Oh it's a solo, I should show off things I can do well." It's not about you, it's about the composition. The most important part of any solo is to enhance the rest of the song around it, not to take the focus off the other instruments so you can go "check me out." Again, that's not to say you can't show off, but if you're going to play something crazy, fast, and flashy, make sure it's in a context that helps the song. If the song is building up to something melodic then play melodically. If it's building up to something aggressive, then be aggressive. If the section you're supposed to solo over starts flashy and ends subtle and relaxed then bring out that quality in the song.

Don't be afraid to repeat yourself either. Don't rip off licks from other songs you've done solos on note for note, but people enjoy repetition. If you feel like the solo isn't coherent enough despite your transitions being good, try repeating a theme throughout. The last guest solo I did had a simple 2 bar lick that was only 5 notes that I repeated. I played it right off the top of the solo, and once again in the middle. It added a nice cohesive quality to the solo.

Expand your musical vocabulary too. If you are listening to the track and you start thinking "Man, this part really needs like a Guthrie Govan type vibe to it" then listen to Guthrie and learn a few licks to see how he writes solos. You'll see things like his use of chromaticism and how he likes to outline chords in his solos, and now you have direction with your solo. You can now take those tools and start writing something chromatic that outlines the chords.

That's another thing, if you're playing notes that are in the chord you're playing over, you'll never be wrong. They all sound good. Are they boring? Sure, but if you learn to embellish chord tones with extensions (notes that aren't in a chord but that can add more color like the 9, 13, 7, etc.) and melody lines you'll have some fantastic stuff going on. This is very much a jazz approach, but in recent years has bled over into great metal solos too (Petrucci, Govan, Polyphia, Periphery, etc). If you're just playing over single notes or power chords that's fine, because those notes still imply chords within a given key. So if I'm playing a single note that is the root of the key I'm in (a D in D Minor) I can just treat it like a Dmin chord, or a Dmin7 chord, or whatever variation of a Dmin chord and it'll still work just fine!

My last tip is that you should never write an entire solo from the guitar. You'll only be limited by what your hands know, and your muscle memory will take over your composition and creativity, smothering it. If you can't figure out a part then create one in your mind, picture what you want to hear, then try recreating it on the instrument. You'll come up with things in your head that your fingers never would've come up with, and you'll also expand your musical vocabulary this way.

I know that's a lot, and soloing is a deep subject, but in summary... make sure your solo has dynamics and conveys what the song is trying to achieve. If you can't find the right notes, imagine them first, or look at other players to get your creativity flowing. Do a service to the song and you'll be doing a service to your solo. Hope that helps man, sorry for the "condensed novel" but it should get you started on the right track!

 

[Furyof]

Wow man, That wasn't even a post for me but it expanded my mind. I will have to read that a second time in a bit. ^^
I've been limited to solos myself too so I just have been trying to get a godly vibrato.
I feel the pain OP

 

[noUser01]

Wow man, That wasn't even a post for me but it expanded my mind. I will have to read that a second time in a bit. ^^
I've been limited to solos myself too so I just have been trying to get a godly vibrato.
I feel the pain OP

I'm glad it helped you out, man. Vibrato is one of those few things that came surprisingly natural and easy to me. I literally just learned what it was, and then after that it just kind of worked itself out. If you have any specific questions or soloing in general just ask. I'm no master of either, but I'm happy with where I'm at thus far.

 

[TallestFiddle]

Personally when I write a solo Its usually because I get inspiration when I'm listening to one of my riffs or chord progressions I just recorded. When this happens I'll just press record and start improvising over that part. Some of the improv will be stupid and I'll delete it but some of the ideas will be cool, so I'll actually cut out the parts I like and put it on a new track so I remember it. Then I'll try to improvise again but play the parts I already came up with that I like. Eventually I'm going to have a solo full of parts that I like and then I practice that to try to get it all in one Take. (Sometimes I cheat though and record it piece by piece).

This works because I took some time learning solos I like and those techniques and melodies just come out in my own way when I'm improvising.

 

[cubix]

I think it also might be the fact that after playing/recording "djenty" stuff all the time that's about precision, tightness and short picking it's hard to adjust to do a solo that's mainly about feel and flow Unless you're shredding the shit out of it of course.

 

[jinxist]

Wow guys. Just wow! Yet again this community provided me with insight I would imagine some would pay great money to gain. I sincerely appreciate all of the replies. And Conner. My god man, thank you! That was an amazing piece of advice. Now I'm even more inspired to write more music. Thank you all. I'm going to post some more stuff in here and hopefully show some improvements!!

 

[noUser01]

Wow guys. Just wow! Yet again this community provided me with insight I would imagine some would pay great money to gain. I sincerely appreciate all of the replies. And Conner. My god man, thank you! That was an amazing piece of advice. Now I'm even more inspired to write more music. Thank you all. I'm going to post some more stuff in here and hopefully show some improvements!!

No worries man, please do keep us posted!