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Old 12-10-2017, 12:37 PM
jessupe jessupe is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Marin Co.Ca.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveKell View Post
I haven't posted much in a while so I thought I'd bring up a few things about my playing lately. The best I ever got with any kind of soloing was about 35 years ago when I was heavily into bluegrass and had a custom Martin D28. I stopped into a small local music store a few times to check out a bluegrass jam they had every Saturday morning. I picked on the tunes I knew and had rehearsed, never trying once to improvise a solo.

Skip ahead to the past 6 months. I inherited a Yairi DY90 super abalone from a wealthy friend who had traveled to Japan to commission K. Yairi to be very hands on with the building of this guitar. My friend was a collector with a basically unlimited budget so a lot of awesome guitars came and went in his collection. This 36 year old Yairi from 1982 was the one guitar that stayed in his collection. He maintained it in near mint condition. Since it was his favorite, he wanted me to have it.

I've been going to a jam every Friday where country music is played every Friday night for over 6 months. There are a lot of older guys there with awesome old Martins, ancient Gibsons and some high dollar Taylors. Since showing up with the Yairi, I can be heard above all of them and most eyes are usually on me. An old Texas music legend who plays breaks on all the songs with the only electric there has been prodding me to do my own leads on the Yairi since I embellish my chord phrasings a lot.

At first I was terrified of the idea since he is always spot on with an appropriate solo for every song played. The first few I did were disasters, mainly because everybody else faltered on the progressions while following me. My solos were totally melody based so I never understood the problem. I got out my Toby Walker Take a Solo cd a few times and went through every exercise. I have started recording myself singing new songs with chord accompaniment to practice lead breaks. So far I have to learn each solo by rote practice in hopes the guys chording along will follow perfectly. I record two or three runs throughs of the progression to practice with.

I'm having a somewhat hard time jumping in on the right note. Actually, I'm having to look down the neck in anticipation of when and where to start. I'm nowhere near being able to improvise solos on the fly and am getting discouraged because of that. At least I can't improvise anything that isn't tied closely to a scale yet. I intend to get there though since the Yairi is a very motivating guitar to play.

Anybody got any suggestions on how to turbocharge my soloing and become more adept at it? Seriously, no suggestion could possibly be too basic. I'm devoted to accomplishing this. It's where I should be by now.
Good soloing is all aout knowing when to speak....a bad solisit will be like a person who "hogs" a conversation and never lets anyone else ever speak....the "timing" thing your referring to can be go hand on hand with other aspects of the "song" and fortunately for you there is a "trick" that can 1. help you with the timing and 2. help you with "what am I supposed to do when I'm not soloing, sit here with finger in my ear? ....

So what thois comes down to is that yopu have to have some basic knowledge, I will assume you have that...

1. know a penatonic scale
2. know how to find what key you are in to be able to play over the song

assuming you have that in place take a song, a simple blues song, and use that to "jam" over

what you are trying to do is 1. HEAR the music,as a conversation, try to get a good idea of when its a good time to say something....these will be the "areas" of "bursts" of solos, this is when you are talking....BUT WHAT TO DO WHEN IT'S NOT YOUR TURN TO SPEAK?....what you do is the "but,but,um,um,hmm.hmm,oh,oh,ah,ah" while listening to the other guy talk....

what this translates to in solo land, is that during the periods of time of the song when you are not speaking/soloing, not being the forefront of the conversation, while others are "speaking" ie other parts of the music are being more in front, say the vocals, you will be doing in essence what would be in a speaking conversation..."yes,yes, I see, I see, what? what? ,ok ,ok...or you are opening ypur mouth saying little things, but the other guy is still talking....

or in times when you are not soloing, within the key, same scale you are soling in, you just play some simple one note'r lines, something that goes with the rythm, something that mimic the bass line for a sec, something that is in unison with the vocals , for example....

WHY THIS HELPS is because if you do this,1. you are never really stopping, you are in flow with the song and rhythm, like pedaling a bike slowly, its much easier to start pedaling faster if you are already pedaling vs starting from a dead stop

2. this help you really understand the song, gets it so you know the other guys parts too, as you may be tracing their moves every once in awhile...

quite simply you are trying to keep soloing during the entire song, BUT when it is not your turn to speak/solo, you want your little conversation interjections, "the ah yes, I see, ah,um's" to be virtually invisible in the sound scape, so they just blend into the background...

just like in a real conversation, if someone else is speaking and you are saying, "yes,yes, hmm,ok, I see" even though you are uttering words, you are not being rude and cutting the guy off, you little utterances actually invisibly disappear into the conversation and seem "normal"

whereas if someone starts to say something and you just jump in, not only is there that weird pause {your stumbling with coming in at the right time}but its just rude and sounds like crap....ie see half of the guitar players from the 80's/90's who would take every opportunity to "say something"

Put on ZZ tops "pincushion" G penatonic blues scale, easy to play with, because the scale goes over it well and because the song is not really "bluesy and has some strange arrangements its a good song to try the conversation approach, try to do a dual solo with Billy, speak at the same time, but let him lead, when he's singing, put in some "uhhuh's, aha', ok's....

I think it will help if you understand what I'm saying
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