Here I began the stupid thing of trying to analyse my own music, and by doing so, I learnt a lot about my own playing.
Ok... Enough wasting band width. Lets talk music.
Lets begin analysing the clips put up here. I'm not going to talk about scales. Lets talk moods. Not modes. Go into WHY we played what we played. Not what we played dissected to the 100th degree.
Lets look at my clips. I'm commenting these things not as a player, but as a listener. I'll say things based on what I'd like to hear personally, rather than what I should be hearing, since there's no technical basis for that.
Lets talk about the first clip I did:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7156858
This backing track generally had the same shape throughout. By shape, I mean structure. 4/4 timing, general rock feel. Hardly any shift. Except on one point at 0:41 where things got a bit heated up.
So, with a pretty one dimensional track, what do you do to make things interesting? Take on various scales? Various melodies? Tones? All can be done. But note, the more you choose to do, the more proficient you'd have to be. In my case, since I can't play like ShredCow or like Jonarsh, I chose the simple method. I played with tones primarily. The clip is short, so I have to make this solo count. Also because I did this in one take, I didn't have the luxury of controlling my composition by multi tracking.
Picking dynamics matter a lot here, since you have ONE chance and ONE sound to work with. The changes in note characteristics will be controlled purely by pickup selection, and picking strength.
Something I've realised about humbuckers with 250k pots: You need to really abuse them to get them to open up. So since this is a rocking track, I decided to go in wild, but slow first.
0:00 to 0:16
Here's where I mainly ran through standard minor scale patterns. The key thing is, to let the tones work, so I used the bridge pup and tried to get the guitar to scream a bit.
0:17 to 0:24
Time for a tone change. This, being an HSS guitar, has the nice option of going from a screamy HB tone to a nice bouncy single coil tone. A simple major scale used at this point also changes the mood slightly. But the key mood change here is the pickup switching.
0:25 to 0:40
Repeated the mood change my playing around with scale changes and pickup tone changes. In this early section, I used a lot of hammer ons, bends and slides, and not as much picking, if you'd notice. There's a reason for this. Constant picking is monotonous. It's boring. Imaging listening to "plck plck plck" constantly for the whole song. No dynamics. A guitar solo needs to have life. Character. Bend a note. Slide a note. Legato. Staccato. Vary the styles to create a different feel all the time. This is more exaggerated when you look at my 2nd track, but I'm not done here yet.
Now, I know a shift in energy in the track is coming. Normally, I'd signal that shift by doing something drastic. Like a divebomb, or a slide down or up. Or a screaming bend. But what do I do to lead up to that? Someone mentioned here that I used intervals in that section. I don't know what that's called, but I did it to lead up to the change. That's something you do to prepare your listener and tell him/her "something else is coming... stay tuned".
0:41 to End
Notice up till now, I played at a moderate speed. Not very fast, not very aggressive. If I were to begin ferociously, would I have the energy to continue that attack for the whole track? Nope... Few people I know can do that. Malmsteen, SRV, Michael Romeo, MAB are some of such people. Most others rely on other methods. This also allows me to use the aggression as a mood change too.
So I did. Played my fingers out form this point to the end. I was almost at my own personal physical limits (like I said, I don't play fast much), and I think it came off nicely. ShredCow once told me: if you just go and keep playing till you lose it, you'll end up handling fast playing much better. So I tried this.
At 0:52, I literally pulled the string off the fretboard, resulting in that frenzy-like sound. Could I duplicate this? Probably not. But I know this is at least a testimony to me having tried this attempt. Heh.
Then now lets check out the 2nd clip I did:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7296495
The tones for this clip were a little harder to control, mainly because I restricted myself to using only ONE pickup. That was my humbucker. But here was a track that wasn't so one dimensional. It's got a bit more texture, and more interesting chord and mood changes. There are 4 key passages in there. So I think one pickup might just do the trick.
0:00 to 0:38
The backing track is a bit funky, and jumpy. So why kill that groove with rhythmic leads? I chose to do a simple solo with long notes as a melody guide to let the drum beat shine through. Only at 0:15 did I just throw in a phrygian ascension (I think that's what it is called) just to make things sound a wee bit more interesting, MAINLY because the drummer was building up to the next passage by thumping a regular beat. I tend to look forward to what's coming next before I decide what to play now. Because mostly, it must be a nice flow, or your listener will feel unsettled.
Actually, this is a long passage, so why not break it into 2 different sections yourself? What I did to do that was to play a similar feel and tone solo in a higher octave. I learnt this little compositional trick from Joe Satriani in a mag long ago.:mrgreen: The SAME melody played in 2 or 3 different octaves can fill up a song quite nicely.
0:39 to 0:57
Here, there's nothing much to do. The drums are going into epileptic fits, and the rhythm guitar was tking a snooze. So I simply filled it up with a cascading 3 guitar harmony with NO fast playing. Something like symphonic strings.
0:57 to 1:13
The same chordal passage as section one, but this time, the drums seems to be playing a slightly more upbeat section. So, this is the time to shred, if you can call what I did that. It's ALSO signalling the end of this first half of the song, and the 2nd half is completely different. So I need to DESCEND here and bring the listener's mood DOWN to earth so I can transition nicely. Usually, a desend is enough. But thing here is, there's a ripping rhythm riff that transitions the moods of the track courtesy of the BT. So I need to build up to that. How? Ascend lor...
There's no point adding anything to that rhythm riff at 1:14 to 1:16. Nothing I can add or play over that will make it sound better than it already does by itself. So, leaving it alone is better.
1:17 to End
Here's the change in mood. Things are still funky, but is a more jumpy manner rather than rocking manner like the beginning of the track. So, using the SAME humbucker, I change the distortion to an overdrive, and brough the gain low. Let the humbucker's own natural tone come through, and I just add to the rhythm feel by what is known as "Tocalling" (I think that's how it's spelled). In addition to this, I did cheat a little by adding a rhythm melody in the background by using the neck pickup. If I had used the bridge for both, the tones would clash, and the track would sound like shit.
You can only tocal for so long unless there's a lead singer. But in an instrumental track, you're IT. So after 8 bars, I had to change to a lead. Still on the same tone settings. I just went for a nice bluesy upbeat melody. Cut short a note here, extend a note there, and you add texture.
Again, staying here would kill the mood. So, to end off the track, I up the OD gain to the max on my guitar's vol knob. Playing generally the same thing, but this time, the gain is much higher, so the tone feels heavier. This, I think it a nice way also to signal that something (probably the end of the track) is coming.
Something I'd like to point out in these 2 clips, and as a guitarist and listener. The person who controls the mood of the music is NOT you. It's your drummer. Believe it or not, a good drummer can make a mediocre solo sound fantastic if you know how to work with him... In a band, the drummer is your best and only friend. Work with him closely, and you'll find your mood changes for the song in there.
Remember, it's not what you play that matters, rather, it's HOW you play that counts.
