A Bit Of Excellent Advice For A Way To Learn Guitar Solo
We often hear a song with a nice guitar solo and think it would be great to learn how to play it. It is a good exercise in musicianship to learn guitar solo for several reasons. First, it helps develop the ability to play by ear. Secondly, it exposes the musician to different styles of playing. Third, and most importantly, it is a lot of fun.
A useful tool for this is any kind of device that can play back a recording repeatedly. The easiest way to do this is on a computer. If the song is on a compact disk, it has to be ripped to an mp3 file on the computer. Then, it has to be converted to a wav file that can be opened in audio editing software.
A suitable program can be found for free on the internet. Refer to the program help file to get the details of how to use the software. Once the wav file is open, it should be possible to select any section. Most programs will just play the selected section every time you hit the space bar. Some programs will even allow playing of the recording at a slower speed without changing the pitch. This can be very useful for hearing the individual notes.
Make sure you are in tune with the song. Usually tuning with an electronic tuner will be the best, assuming the recording you are playing with is in tune. Keep in mind that some artists known for guitar solos tune down a couple of frets. Stevie Ray Vaughan and AC/DC do this.
The next step is to discover what key the song is in. The first and last note played by the bass is usually the main, or tonic, note of the key. If you are not sure whether the key is major or minor, simply play both scales while listening to the song to see which sounds right. If you know your scales, you will have a much easier time learning the solo. If you do not know your scales, you will have an easier time if you at least learn the scale for the key of this song. Then, you will at least know one scale.
Once you start playing along with the song, you may find you are having some difficulty if it is a challenging piece of music. One way to deal with this is to simplify the solo. You could play just the first note of each measure, to get the main notes played first. Then start adding notes until you have it all.
If you are still having problems, consider the possibility that there may be an easier way of playing the part. There are many ways to play any scale, and different lead parts are easier to play in different hand positions, or combinations of hand positions, on the neck.
Once you are satisfied with your ability to play the solo, you may find that you can modify the solo to put your own style in. The more solos you learn, the more scales and styles you will learn. Soon, you may find you want to get adventurous and try your hand at improvising. Someday, people may become interested in learning to play your solos.
A useful tool for this is any kind of device that can play back a recording repeatedly. The easiest way to do this is on a computer. If the song is on a compact disk, it has to be ripped to an mp3 file on the computer. Then, it has to be converted to a wav file that can be opened in audio editing software.
A suitable program can be found for free on the internet. Refer to the program help file to get the details of how to use the software. Once the wav file is open, it should be possible to select any section. Most programs will just play the selected section every time you hit the space bar. Some programs will even allow playing of the recording at a slower speed without changing the pitch. This can be very useful for hearing the individual notes.
Make sure you are in tune with the song. Usually tuning with an electronic tuner will be the best, assuming the recording you are playing with is in tune. Keep in mind that some artists known for guitar solos tune down a couple of frets. Stevie Ray Vaughan and AC/DC do this.
The next step is to discover what key the song is in. The first and last note played by the bass is usually the main, or tonic, note of the key. If you are not sure whether the key is major or minor, simply play both scales while listening to the song to see which sounds right. If you know your scales, you will have a much easier time learning the solo. If you do not know your scales, you will have an easier time if you at least learn the scale for the key of this song. Then, you will at least know one scale.
Once you start playing along with the song, you may find you are having some difficulty if it is a challenging piece of music. One way to deal with this is to simplify the solo. You could play just the first note of each measure, to get the main notes played first. Then start adding notes until you have it all.
If you are still having problems, consider the possibility that there may be an easier way of playing the part. There are many ways to play any scale, and different lead parts are easier to play in different hand positions, or combinations of hand positions, on the neck.
Once you are satisfied with your ability to play the solo, you may find that you can modify the solo to put your own style in. The more solos you learn, the more scales and styles you will learn. Soon, you may find you want to get adventurous and try your hand at improvising. Someday, people may become interested in learning to play your solos.
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