Need recommendations for solos to learn
Basically, I've been playing guitar for about 15 years. I can play most scales at full metronome speed 244/4 bpm. I can pretty much play at 350/4 bpm. I'm basically looking for solos that will push me a little bit but that will be attainable. Usually I can play many parts of a solo, but when it gets down to playing the super fast sections, I fall flat. It's awfully frustrating to try to learn a complete song and get stuck in a short section of lighting fast notes. Obviously it's not all about speed, I also need just general bending/hammer on/pull off practice to obtain those speeds but am wondering if anyone knows any good solos to learn that I can use to build my chops. I don't want to run before I can walk, but it just seems that there is always some part i can't get.
# 1
# 2
Originally Posted by: mrkbrksGet the John 5 tab book Requim. That will test you all you want.
+1
Anything by yngwie Malmsteen,
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the alien
Jeff Loomis
# 3
I would urge you to consider spending very little time learning other guitarists solos if you want to be a unique, interesting, cool player. The coolest solos by people like Vai, Malmsteen, etc, are cool because those guys developed their own vocabulary of phrases that don't sound like anybody else.
Or if you do want to learn other people's solos note for note, why not try getting a book of Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane solos, or learn them from recordings. If you can master some of those, it will teach you a lot about music, and you can borrow some of the phrases you like and it will sound way cooler than just another guitar player copping licks from a guitar hero. Horn players generally kick our asses anyway! One of the reason Steve Vai is cool is that he gets ideas for heavy rock solos by looking far outside heavy rock; like human speech, and Bulgarian wedding music. If he started copping licks from Yngwie, he wouldn't sound like Steve Vai anymore, and one Yngwie is enough (especially with that giant head of his;-).
If you do cop stuff from other guitarists, and you want to play heavy rock, you could get some cool ideas by looking outside your genre. Why not see what happens when you string together a few cool riffs by Brent Mason (country session ace), find a way to combine that with a tasty BB King line, throw in a phrase or two by Debashish Bhattacharya (Indian master slide guitarist). The possibilities are endless, and if you work on stuff like that, you'll turn a lot more heads than the kid down the street who spent his practice time spitting out perfect renditions of solos from tunes like "I am a Viking".
Another great thing to do is pick up a classical violin concerto-especially Bach; they give you a great workout while learning to play the music of true genius'. Yngwie sounds cool, largely because his main influence was Paganini; not another guitar player; and he put that type of phrasing into a metal context. Why not go the the source; everybody's already heard Yngwie, but they haven't heard your take on the music that influenced him!
If you must learn your favorite guitar solos, just try to make up your own variations asap, and make it sound as unlike the original as possible. Ask yourself what is it about that solo that's cool, and try to embody that quality rather than just repeating the exact phrasing of the original. Learning to improvise is imo far more rewarding in the long run, and I hope you'll take that route as much as possible. Happy hunting!
Or if you do want to learn other people's solos note for note, why not try getting a book of Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane solos, or learn them from recordings. If you can master some of those, it will teach you a lot about music, and you can borrow some of the phrases you like and it will sound way cooler than just another guitar player copping licks from a guitar hero. Horn players generally kick our asses anyway! One of the reason Steve Vai is cool is that he gets ideas for heavy rock solos by looking far outside heavy rock; like human speech, and Bulgarian wedding music. If he started copping licks from Yngwie, he wouldn't sound like Steve Vai anymore, and one Yngwie is enough (especially with that giant head of his;-).
If you do cop stuff from other guitarists, and you want to play heavy rock, you could get some cool ideas by looking outside your genre. Why not see what happens when you string together a few cool riffs by Brent Mason (country session ace), find a way to combine that with a tasty BB King line, throw in a phrase or two by Debashish Bhattacharya (Indian master slide guitarist). The possibilities are endless, and if you work on stuff like that, you'll turn a lot more heads than the kid down the street who spent his practice time spitting out perfect renditions of solos from tunes like "I am a Viking".
Another great thing to do is pick up a classical violin concerto-especially Bach; they give you a great workout while learning to play the music of true genius'. Yngwie sounds cool, largely because his main influence was Paganini; not another guitar player; and he put that type of phrasing into a metal context. Why not go the the source; everybody's already heard Yngwie, but they haven't heard your take on the music that influenced him!
If you must learn your favorite guitar solos, just try to make up your own variations asap, and make it sound as unlike the original as possible. Ask yourself what is it about that solo that's cool, and try to embody that quality rather than just repeating the exact phrasing of the original. Learning to improvise is imo far more rewarding in the long run, and I hope you'll take that route as much as possible. Happy hunting!
# 4
This is a controversial topic :)
Most rock gods started off studying their own gods. Steve Vai, for example, studied Zappa, Page and others. He subsequently studied under Satrianni, and went on to develop his own great style based on deep theoretical knowledge.
I was going to say that the best thing you can do for your improvisation is to learn lots of other people's solos. It's a language. Get it under your fingers. _And_ learn theory and boaden yourself into other genres by all means.
It's by no means universally accepted that you should avoid studying the mainstream if you want to be original. Walk before you run, maybe?
I think a wonderful solo to learn is Comfortably Numb (second solo).
This is great because there are numerous different live versions out there, so you can learn phrases from each, mix and match, and find yourself adding your own and expanding your ideas. It's also just such a powerful chord progression you can play over it for ages, messing around. Get a backing track of it and wail...
GaJ
Most rock gods started off studying their own gods. Steve Vai, for example, studied Zappa, Page and others. He subsequently studied under Satrianni, and went on to develop his own great style based on deep theoretical knowledge.
I was going to say that the best thing you can do for your improvisation is to learn lots of other people's solos. It's a language. Get it under your fingers. _And_ learn theory and boaden yourself into other genres by all means.
It's by no means universally accepted that you should avoid studying the mainstream if you want to be original. Walk before you run, maybe?
I think a wonderful solo to learn is Comfortably Numb (second solo).
This is great because there are numerous different live versions out there, so you can learn phrases from each, mix and match, and find yourself adding your own and expanding your ideas. It's also just such a powerful chord progression you can play over it for ages, messing around. Get a backing track of it and wail...
GaJ
# 5
