how do you play with "feeling"

any tips on how to solo with feeling?? don't know about you but it's pretty hard to me. any tips would really help thanks

hmm.. sounds like you want us to teach you how to love *LOL*

good question though.. i can hardly explain how it "works"

its .. feeling *LOL* when i sit there with just my guitar and nothing else i improvise and try to "live" the tone. its like meditation. i start to lose track of whatever is around me - theres only me and the tone....

i guess that didnt help at all, did it? *LOL* :D

What i do is
Don't use too much force on ur finger when pressing the strings. That will give u tension on ur shoulders..makes you unable to relax..and that will make you tired as you go on playing the song.
So, know the songs, tabs well..and play calmly...and most importantly enjoy it..im sure you can have the 'feelin'.=)

Hey Azrael..hi!
Its been a long time hearing a post from you. lol
Hehe..ur recent post in GB is hella gd..

i guess it comes from you
when i first played i played the way i did couse i loved playing i didnt do anything bout "feeling"
my drummer friend played with other guitarists but he sais nobody plays as i do cause the dont have the "feeling" i guess my love for playing sounded through the guitar

the best way i know to see if you play somthin good in the right mood is to ask somebody you count on

Certainly it is something that cannot be defined. The "feel" is what makes the difference between guitarists. I would say, paly just what feels right for you, don't think as "hmm now I am in A minor so I can play a very fast run on the Aminor scale and then end with a arpeggio" Just sit back and improvise for many hours, and I'm sure that you will come up with your own feel

if you like what you're playing and you love guitar, then feeling shouldn't be hard to put into the songs.

Learn as many techniques and styles as you can and practice them until they come naturally. Then when you play something, you can transfer what you hear and feel in your head to the fretboard without the technique getting in the way anymore.

i read a quote that went something like:
"learn all the theory you possibly can, then forget it all and play from the heart."

it just means that if you know how to create music on the guitar, then you can create some music from your heart.

"Feeling" is the unteachable aspect of guitar playing. If two people took the same music courses in college, it's the quality that makes them different as musicians. Over an A Minor chord, one would perhaps play, C, B, A, E, whereas the other might play B, A, G, E.

Your "feeling" cannot be taught to you because it's yours. If someone taught you feeling, then you wouldn't have feeling, you'd be a copy.

Play and play and play and play some more over chord progressions. Your inner ear will tell you what's good and what's not. This is your "feeling". You're not playing other people's notes, but the ones that YOU like.

I would say - for starters - Don't think about your lead - if you think about it, it'll sound stiff and awkward. Leads and solos come from the heart - not the mind. If you know your stuff, your fingers just go by thenselves.
-Bob

Just learn songs and play them well enough so it comes natural. Then you can begin to have fun and improvise to what you like. If you dont know them well enough you get caught up in learning and it becomes methodical and choir which is not to creative. Once learned then your creativity can shine and you will have that "feeling" to do what ever depending on your mod....sad, happy, rage, etc.

You can either lose yourself in the music you're playing and your love for it or fake it with mechanical control of notes and bends and vibrato, but then you might lose interest. It can be done however, you can learn to control the volume of how you strum the note you can affect the tone of the note, pressing down hard when fretting, picking harder, which ever, personally i prefer letting go and just playing wtih all the emotion of the song, if the music you're playing with has no emotion you can't expect to feel that you should. Humans are not perfect, don't play perfectly, play to the best of your ability or half of it whichever you feel is most appropriate at the time. Play for fun. That is all that matters, don't play to get chicks, unless that makes you play better, if that empowers you to play for their emotions then yours will show through. Eh i am rambling...

I can't be bothered to write it all out here but I did do some stuff on composition and playing with feel over on my bands website:
Go to the guitar assault down the bottom and head for Composition Techniques

http://www.john-doe.cjb.net

I have been told it's quite helpfull

Just asking how to play with feeling is the wrong approach. Like what alot of people are saying, it's something that can't be taught. Yeah learn as many techniques as you can so you can play them, but playing with feeling is playing them in a certain way that expresses feeling. Just like with rhythm especially if you use a drum machine or metronome, it's impossible to play with feeling. Yeah the notes "melody" themselves may express feeling, but it's also the way you play them. You notice starting off slow then speeding up in the melody expresses feeling, just like how hard or soft you play those notes. The best way I could think of when guiding someone to play with more feeling is to put your heart into it. Learn how to express what your feeling through your instrument. Music is another form of communication, so really your telling your story through music. SO speak through your instrument. You feel sad, play the notes that sound sad, you feel mad play the notes that sound strong. Put your heart into it, that's all.

I dunno how many times ive said that, but if you wanna hear the maximum feel that can be gotten out of a guitar, listen to Jeff Becks music. Songs like "Brush with the Blues", "Where were you", "Nadia" or the beatles cover "Day in a life"

you´ll be amazed and inspired. (he plays it all with fingers only! no pick involved - thats a VITAL difference in sound)

Yeah I heard you guys talk about him before and I got one of his songs, "where were you". Pretty awesome! :) He definitely takes a more sensitive approach to playing than anyone else I've heard.

Do loads of blues bends and do what I like to call the "Pornstar Face", where you wince more and more as the note is bent higher. Its also very important to say any guitarist who doesnt meet these standards has no "feeling" or "emotion", cos its all part of being an idiot.

Nah, im just joking ive had a bad day and I hate dealing with people Ive just described. You cant hear feeling, its just there, youll feel it yourself.

I once read here that if you can hum an improvised good solo or melody then the only thing you are lacking is the skill on the guitar (still developing it). So the only thing you need is to practice and practice.

My advice is to listen to what may be the best guitar solo ever written.

Group "Rush"
Album "Hemispheres" or "Exit Stage Left" (studio or live respectively)
Song "La Villa Strangiato"

I'll explain some of what makes Lifeson's second solo (The Ghost of the Aragon) so great so that you can apply those principles but you ought to hear it.

1) Fluid movement around the tonic notes.
Lifeson's playing raises expectations and then fulfills them in an odd way that adds interest to his playing. If a regular scale pattern is played the ear can predict what notes "ought" to be played before the tonic note is heard. This is also the case if sequences of notes are repeated (different accenting and timing can prevent this from being dull). Where he plays slowly a backlog of notes (which have to be played to resolve a passage) builds up. To get back to the tonic note in time he must compensate by speeding up, accelerating fluidly in a little burst of notes. When he plays fast at the start of a phrase the converse applies, he doesn't have to rush to the tonal centre. Sometimes notes nudge each other and start cascades, pushing some of the last notes of a phrase past their natural tonal centre until they fall gently back into place. If you've ever seen a slinky spring run down steps you might get what I mean when I say there's a clear analogy there!

(If you want to develop this kind of breathing soulful reprise then listen to bird song, my fave's the European Blackbird, Turdus Merula. You guys are largely North American but you've got hundreds of other species to listen to.)

2) Range of volume and intensity.
Some of this volume range comes from "violining", picking a note with a volume down and gradually unrolling his little finger around his volume knob so that the note swells and the attack of the note isn't heard. His use of dynamics is tied in closely to the emotions from the sense of urgency generated by "falling behind schedule" as discussed previously.

3) Great vibrato and bending.
The rate and depth of vibrato is good tool for rhythmic expression. His vibrato is wide and fast, technically superb. His bending is similarly without flaw.

4) Perfect tone.
He doesn't kill his tone with too much gain or by using wah or cutting the mids like some metal freak. He adds a bit of echo and some chorus.

5) Some technical wizardry.
Violining, pinch harmonics and some dazzlingly fast runs. These are things that many top players can emulate but I am yet to hear anyone who can write solos which rival the feel and melodic content of his playing.