Best Solo Electric guitar songs to learn?

[thechariot1x]

Not sure if this should go in electric or play and write, so feel free to move it if it's wrong here.

I've been thinking that part of the reason I play so little electric relative to acoustic is that my acoustic songs are primarily meant for (or lend themselves easily to) solo performance while my electric songs are typically meant for a band and most of them have a vocal part too.

So, I'm thinking that I would like to learn some electric guitar songs that sound good on their own (without accompanying instruments or vocals). I'm not too picky about genre except I'm personally a fan of bluegrass/country (which probably be mostly acoustic anyway).

I've already considered Cliffs of Dover, but last time I tried it, it kicked my butt, although it has been a while so maybe I should give it another go.

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated!

[JonPR]

You should probably look for some jazz chord melody arrangements. Solo electric guitar is much more common in jazz than in rock.

Cliffs of Dover is not a solo piece, of course. It has bass and drums accompaniment (later on). I've not tried it myself, though (not my thing at all ), so maybe it would work without. Or you just stop after the intro.

If jazz is not your thing, Merle Travis played electric on a lot of his tunes - he'd often have bass and drums behind him, but they were hardly necessary. Chet Atkins, too, played country/blues fingerstyle on electric as well as acoustic.

[thechariot1x]

Yeah true, it's not really a solo piece but it still sounds good on it's own imho. I should definitely learn some Chet Atkins.

[archerscreek]

I think I was in a similar frame of mind and position in the past. I wanted to play the electric more but thought a band was needed to thicken the sound and fill it out like a nice, full acoustic guitar fills the room. Then I bought a Guitar Method video (VHS tape) of Stevie Ray Vaughn and saw the light.

SRV played in a way that fattened up the tone of his electric guitar a great deal. Play like that and you'll be set. The key to the fat SRV sound, in addition to possibly increasing the gauge of your strings, is learning how to rake multiple strings in a percussive fashion while allowing intended notes to ring clear. You do it by altering the way you fret notes.

Instead of the normally taught method of having the fret hand fingers come straight up and free from touching any of the adjacent strings, you purposefully slant your fingers so that they mute the strings around the fretted one(s), and then you hit the muted strings as well as the ones you fret. It thickens the sound a great deal. Of course he also raked open strings before quickly deadening them like on Pride and Joy.

Hendrix was also a great rhythm player. Hey Joe is a great song of course. But Jimi also did the percussive thing described above. If you can track it down look for his version of Killing Floor, I think it is on the BBC Sessions CD.

When you learn how to do this percussive method of playing single notes on the electric guitar, (or double stops, octaves, or triads) you can play extremely interesting rhythm parts that are fast, thick, and full. You can play a simple walking bass line and make it nice and full this way then add fills and lines, kind of like you do playing bluegrass.

[thechariot1x]

Originally Posted by archerscreek

I think I was in a similar frame of mind and position in the past. I wanted to play the electric more but thought a band was needed to thicken the sound and fill it out like a nice, full acoustic guitar fills the room. Then I bought a Guitar Method video (VHS tape) of Stevie Ray Vaughn and saw the light.

SRV played in a way that fattened up the tone of his electric guitar a great deal. Play like that and you'll be set. The key to the fat SRV sound, in addition to possibly increasing the gauge of your strings, is learning how to rake multiple strings in a percussive fashion while allowing intended notes to ring clear. You do it by altering the way you fret notes.

Instead of the normally taught method of having the fret hand fingers come straight up and free from touching any of the adjacent strings, you purposefully slant your fingers so that they mute the strings around the fretted one(s), and then you hit the muted strings as well as the ones you fret. It thickens the sound a great deal. Of course he also raked open strings before quickly deadening them like on Pride and Joy.

Hendrix was also a great rhythm player. Hey Joe is a great song of course. But Jimi also did the percussive thing described above. If you can track it down look for his version of Killing Floor, I think it is on the BBC Sessions CD.

When you learn how to do this percussive method of playing single notes on the electric guitar, (or double stops, octaves, or triads) you can play extremely interesting rhythm parts that are fast, thick, and full. You can play a simple walking bass line and make it nice and full this way then add fills and lines, kind of like you do playing bluegrass.

Thanks, I'll definitely look into this, SRV is awesome!

[Sonics]

...with a Beatles medley.

[rwmct]

Mick Ronson, Sweet Dreamer should sound just fine with just the guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNSbFiuAcgI

[David Rock]

Howdy...

Check out Sonny Landreth's Next of Kindred Spirit...any version...

Let us know when you are ready to report back in!

Be well,
SD