i need help with solos

i need help with solos and the writing of them. ive been playing for years now but im not very good a makin' up solos. could somone tell me good methods about making solos?

imo, soloing is another aspect of music, like songwriting and song covering etc, that requires a lifetime of devotion. Calculus and finite, metaphorically speaking, are also both part of a feild but equally challenging to master.

Listening and learning a wide variety of solos, as well as scales and such is a way to go about it.

Burnt my goddamn bacon writing that response and I hold YOU, chris, personally responsible. Resolved only by recompensation, perhaps, if both parties fail to negotiate a settlement, through a lawsuit which will undoubtably only serve to uphold my rights as a Canadian citizen.

@basics........you shouldn't have left your bacon unatended then :rolleyes:

Chris, I'm pretty much the same way. my trouble is that I just don't "feel" anything when trying to come up with a solo. Another problem I have is just being able to see/hear the big picture and not the details. it's like I can hear an awsome solo over a osng of mine, but when I try to put it all together, nothing is there anymore :(

My thoughts? Soloing is just one of those things you keep doing, whether you're learning "Eruption" or practicing scales. I buy all sorts of jam tracks or make up my own and run scales over them every day, not worrying about what to do, just doing it until I found phrases that I liked. At some point you're faced with a tune that calls for a solo, so you work it out. Sometimes it's noise, other times it's magic. With experience, you'll find more of the latter. :)

Do a lot of improvising. Improve your ear, your rhythmn and your theory knowledge. Learn solos by other artists (don´t learn them by a tab, do it by ear!)

That will help.

what my friend does is just take a basic guitar lick and mess around with it alot... then after like an hour he gets something good out of it.

Soloing is just music writing. Take a class in how to write melodies. I'm not really sure if this will help...I don't know, I've always just been able to do it...

Now, I don't know what kind of setup you have. I use my computer for everything, thus rendering it my very life and if anything happens to it I'm gonna **** my soul right out and keel over. That being said, I have a user friendly setup. I record my rhythm and listen to it with headphones, kinda getting an idea of what I think would sound good with it. Then I plug my guitar into my computer and play the track while doing some lead work over it, seeing how my ideas work and so forth. Let me also stress this. When you get something, embed it in your brain. I've only made one song that has leads and I can't remember anything more than a few key parts. Gimme a break though, it was about 2 minutes and 20 seconds of soloing and I've only made one song with solos. I can remember it if I put the time into working with it as it wasn't really much of an expedition with notes (but it still sounds good). So, work with it, you can forget solos so much easier than you can a catchy riff. Start small, don't drown yourself with too long of solos. Also, I might add I hit record at one point and literally made things up as I went along for about 4 minutes and I can't remember a single note of that. Practice them. Learn scales and an array of licks and tricks you can do to spice them up. It'll come easy once you get the ball rolling, just put the time where needed.

Let me be honest from the start. I am mainly a rhythm guy, but I've learned a few things over the years. Alot of it in the short month I got to jam with a crackhead off his pipe. The guy was simply unbelievable. He probably hadn't played in ten or more years, but due to his knowledge of scales and modes, and his technical ability, no matter what I played, he played some wicked solo's over it.

Once while at a friends house, I played a simple chord progression and within three takes, we had a fine sounding classical tune. I've never played anything classical, and his tastes were more of a 70's classic metal, but my Ovation and his piece o crap made beautiful music. I'll try to put the recording out there, as I don't currently have a web site.

Anyway, my point is this: solo's can be a daunting task, but if your skills are up to par, and you have a hook, either a lyric or a riff, you should play with it until you have something that sounds right. Work with the melody, change it up a bit.

If your looking for the melody, record the rhythm section, and play it over and over and over and... well you get the point. As you listen, let the melody present itself. Learn the relationships between the notes and the underlying harmony. Then try to play what you "hear" within the rhythm.

Sorry for being long winded, hope this helps.

Well, I for one am not that intelligent with this kind of stuff. I'm still reading and learning. Currently making it up as I go along plays a big part in my song writing style. I'll let you know what to do when I figure out a formula or something. Till then, enjoy reading this waste of time.

A few things I do with writing solos is, plan out how you want the solo to sound, what key it will be in, what scale you will use, etc. A good way to get ideas is to record the chord progression, and then improvise to it. Try to do it slowly, sometimes I plan out 16th note pentatonic runs by playing them in 8ths, and then speeding it up later. Also, try to study alot of theory to make sure your solo is interesting, at least to you, try new things, tapping lines, sweep pick, and so forth. I'm all over the place with this post. Hopefully it helps somehow.

I personally think that nothing but trial and error can make a good solo. Firstly, it is helpful to know some basic theory. Know what key you are soloing in, and then mess around with modes, the thing with this plan is that so long as every note you hit is in key, your solo wont sound crap, its just up to you to figure out a melody and general "feel" for the solo. Just inmprovise when jamming and ultimately you will stumble across summin you like

Oh ****e...almost forgot...mess around with arpeggios and triads. That is a great place to start looking for the licks you like/want

For me, soloing is extremely easy, I can throw in a 30 minute improvisation at any given moment but I cant come up with an original chord progression. IMO, When your coming up with a solo don't really put too much time into it. If you have anything to record i would suggest recording your attempts at making them and playing them back to see how they would fit. Don't be so crucial on how they sound either, other people aren't gonna notice a very small detail.

I have Acid Pro and I create music through my computer. First I come up with a good chord progression. Having hundreds of instrument loops at my disposal can really encourages my creative juices to get flowing. Once I get a good beat going, I work out a chord progression. These progressions are usually 2 to three chords with a turn-around. Once I get that going, I'll work out a lead solo using pentatonic scales or boxed patterns of the scale. I use the B B KING approach a first (motifs, call and response tricks). Kinda like scat'n over the progression. I lay down 3 or 4 guitar tracks this way. Then... I'll go back and play each track seperately and pick out the best and intellegent playing. The guitar has to say something. I'll then go on to the other tracks and edit them seperatly. Lastly, I'll clip and paste all the best parts together and create a lead guitar composition. Now you can go back and put in some fancy riffin' in the dead spots. Scales, Arppegios, Cool Licks and Runs etc. This way will help you lay down some basic ideas to build upon.

Hope this helps...

Sounds like what David Gilmour was doing in the 60's and 70's.