Getting the technical results that I want, but how do I write good solos?

Harmony & Theory
#1

Have you ever spent so much time building your musical vocabulary—learning licks and refining your technique—only to hit a wall when you sit down to record and compose a solo?

That’s my struggle and has been for some time now. I have some impressive lines and a method that works for learning technically challenging things, but I just suck when it comes to writing solos. I’m not really the type of person that comes up with melodies in my head. My creative strengths are riff writing and arranging, which is ironic considering that I’m a lead player and I want THAT to be my strong suit.

Is there any community input from you guys that could steer me in the right direction?

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#2

Play the chord tones of the chord you are playing over, especially the 3rd. The 3rd in particular highlights the change, especially if you play it on the first beat of the chord change.

The next best is probably the root, a lot of times I’ll try and make the last 2 or 4 notes I play lead into the root or 3rd on the first beat of the next chord. You can use chromaticism or play from the next scale a little prematurely with those 2 or 4 notes which creates a bit of tension which make the resolution even more pleasant. This type of voice leading really starts to make your solo sound like it has direction.

Stronger melodies tend to use chord tones on downbeats and a mixture of chord tones and non-chord tones on offbeats, these are just guidelines but if you’re struggling to come up with decent melodies this could help :slight_smile:

#4

Ignore my moron drunk post.

Yeaaa it worked, took long enough.

This is a great vid on soloing over chords.
This should be everything you need conceptually.

It’s one of the best vids I,ve seen on soloing.

#5

Great advice from Jack here.

On my end, I’ve found that often times starting out just improvising is the best way to ensure that the solo dooesn’t sound like a pre-arranged series of planned runs. I’ll take my solo section and just improvise a few solos over it until I get one that has some cool moments. Then, I’ll learn those cool moments, and go to the less cool parts and improvise THOSE until I find some ideas that sound cool there, and kind of comp together a solo in my DAW that is something I could have improvised but on a night where ideas are just flowing and everything is just working. Then, I’ll learn THAT solo.

That works if you’re comfortable improvising. If you’re not, that’s another book. :laughing:

#6

See, I think that’s where this issue is really stemming from for me. I’m a piss poor improviser. It’s like a couple cool things that I can do which took a long time to be able to have the technique for and then I’m all out of tricks lol. Any tips on where I should start?

#7

Ok, I mean, this is a BOOK, lol. But maybe make this your focus, and writing will follow.

Couple quick hit thoughts -

Music is, fundamentally, tension and release. Think about that as you play. What are you doing to build and create tension? How are you going to resolve it? All aspects of a guitar performance - high vs low pitch, harmony and notes that sound consonant vs unresolved, vast vs slow lines, bent vs conventionally fretted, loud vs quiet or heavy picking vs soft, whatever - these are all levers you can pull to build or resolve tension.

Saying “melody is important” is easy. Actually doing is is hard. So, maybe start by taking some melodies you really like, and first learn how to play them on guitar. Then, when you can play them, learn the chords under them, and then spend a lot of time thinking about how each note “fits” the chord it’s played over, and fits the tonic orkey center of the song.

If you don’t know at least the basics of music theory - diatonic scales, how those scales are harmonized into triads, how chord changes resolve, that sort of stuff - learn some. It REALLY helps.

Finally, do as much practical applicaiton as you can - improvisation can be practiced just like anything else.

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#8

every time you hear a fragment of a solo that you like, work out what it is and how it relates to what else is going on (I would say “transcribe it” but it doesn’t matter if you write it down).

If you’re not used to doing this it might take ages at first.

Obviously in this day and age many tabs may already exist out there on the internet but they’re not always right and you lose the benefits of intently listening

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#9

I’ve implemented this strategy before and I’m honestly not sure why I don’t do it more because it’s pretty fun for practice. I’ll transcribe or just find accurate tabs for the section and think “this part creates tension because it’s over this chord and uses these notes. This part would precede a part that uses the 1 chord really well” things like that. Just drawing simple conclusions from what I heard. Am I on the right track here?

#10

sounds like you’re not only on the right track but also quite a way along it

#11

Speaking of Marty, I highly recommend his True Fire series. I believe in the 1st installment is where he goes over his methods for writing captivating solos, and in the 3rd he breaks down several solos and shows what options could have been pursued besides the ones he went with.

And seeing as how he wrote arguably the most famous guitar solo in metal history, he seems like a good person to listen to when talking about how to write solos :slight_smile:

Off-topic, but the 2nd one is basically a compendium of his licks. That combined with his original Hot Licks video and you’ll basically know every lick of his and how he plays them. Super useful for transcribing his solos.

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#12

You are, 100%. Do that with solos AND melodies, I’d say - but,t he important part is thinking about WHY things sound cool, in their context.

#13

a thing that always used to trip me up was hearing a cool thing and working out the guitar part and then thinking “ehh that’s not so cool after all”

because I was neglecting to look at what the bass was doing or some other underlying thing

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#14

Appreciate your insights, Drew. I’m starting to get a feel for the direction I should go with my practice now. A big roadblock for me in my writing is position shifting, so I’m working on connecting different arpeggios. I’ve found a lot of marty friedman interviews to be of great value regarding this problem

#15

Its starting to click for me. This is my first time applying these ideas to an original piece and it’s in the form of this little etude. Didn’t even take over 30 minutes to figure this out either. I’m thrilled