Learn Solos or Practice Scales?

lwknives

lwknives

Power User
So last Sunday I had to/got to play Everlasting God by Lincoln Brewster. The song has a pretty cool solo which I attempted to learn note for note. Now this solo is a bit above my skill level to play but I was able to nail it about 75% of the time when playing along with the recording. The problem came when I was performing the song with the rest of the band in front of the congregation. The combination of nerves and not having the backing track I was used to (actual musicians plus no solo track to keep me on track) I kind of botched up some parts. I think if I had had a chance to go over just the solo several times with the band I would have done better but time constraints didn’t allow for that to happen. I got to go over that section twice.

To avoid this problem in the future I need to increase my skill level so that solos like these are easy enough for me that I can play them with the band in front of an audience with no nerves. So my question is, what would be a better method for improving my soloing/fast playing skills. Should I practice scales and modes until I can play them really fast or should I just find challenging solos like this one and learn them note for note?

 
I would suggest both. Learning a solo note for note will help you play that solo, but working on scales & modes will help with improvisation and assist with learning solos and build confidence.
 
For me personally, it always feels different to me playing to a backing track than with the band. Takes me a few tries to get the timing worked out and find my milestones with the band. I don't know if you get a chance to rehearse prior to performance but that could help.

Agreed with comment above, learning the solo and scales are both important. Particularly when learning a solo, know what scale/key the solo is using. That way if you miss a cue or get lost you can always improv your way to the end.
 
Hoping you realize your experience is very normal. Stepping out there with the weight of the musical responsibility on 'your' shoulders versus the confidences of playing along to a recording is a leap. Add to that nerves and it is definitely a transition. Happens to me even on my own studio recordings vs live...lol. I actually have to 'learn' some of my own solos.
 
You're kind of asking two different questions... one, how do I learn *this* song? And two, how do I improve my soloing skills? For overall soloing, yes - practice scales, modes, etc so you can become more familiar w/ them, how they sound and feel, how to apply them, and continue to gain confidence in your abilities.

But if I'm going for note-for-note then it works better for me to just learn the solo. It also helps to know it really well 'in my head' so I know where it goes - I can sort of hear the whole thing in the back of my mind. That also helps with the transition from practicing the recording to playing it w/ a band where I might not get the same cues. Knowing scales and patterns certainly helps because my fingers sort of know what I 'expect' the riffs to be but I don't usually focus on them for this application.

Break the solo down into individual phrases and play them over and over. Learn the first phrase until you've got it. Then do the next section, etc. Pretty soon, you'll be able to string the whole thing together, with a lot of confidence. And while it's not a substitute for learning scales, it will help your overall soloing skills as well.
 
I hardly learned any solos. I might learn bits and pieces, or for ear training figure out what was being done and promptly forget it. Maybe making sure I was still barking up the same tree. That I wasn't missing anything. But I spent my time learning scales, arpeggios, exercises and mainly improvising. I needed to find out what was under the hood. Less interested in what others played. My bad. Lol.
 
Repetition. Same thing when you try to sing and play at the same time, have to know both bits front to back without thinking.
 
I think I have spent more time on scales and that type of thing than learning solos, but I think a good mix of the two is really the way to go, Learning solos increases your musical vocabulary as much as learning scales. I mean, you wouldn't learn the alphabet and words without doing some reading to find out how people string it all together in a sensible way.

I feel like I've been a little lazy about learning full solos, only learning bits and pieces, and that helps a little, but not to the degree that you can get from really digging in and learning the solo structures top to bottom.
 
dpeterson said:
Repetition. Same thing when you try to sing and play at the same time, have to know both bits front to back without thinking.
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This ^^
I think this is one of the harder places to get to in playing - what I like to call "autopilot mode". When your experience and playing level/muscle memory are such that you can play a show without even thinking about it. Playing through a song and thinking about other things - " does the dog need to go out?, shit - my mortgage payment is due, or the girl at the table over there is quite stunning"... That's all repetition and muscle memory- that's when I know I'm on auto pilot.
For me it was both- learning scales/patterns/licks/exercises, with a metronome. As well as learning songs that challenge me. I still have a practice regimen that I stick to every day.
 
Both. Most solos have "signature riffs" and then a bunch of in-between stuff. Cake and frosting. When playing cover songs like Everlasting God, the cake has to be there as it is a very popular song and it will not sound "right" unless the familiar riffs are there, at least to most people. I play in church a lot. When we do popular songs, I do learn the signature riffs, but I mix them with my own embellishments so they sound familiar, but with the added freedom to add my own style. Makes playing more fun, at least for me. At this point, I cannot be bothered with learning a solo note for note.
 
Learning scales and being very comfortable with them (plus the related theory) can help facilitate fluidity in your playing... But getting to work on that kind of thing with a band can be difficult. The next best thing is to do that with some backing tracks or at least a drum machine. Working with a metronome is good, but very different than working with drums.

Learning solos can be really good to help expose you to techniques, phrasing and note choices that may not be in your vocabulary or may not occur to you.

I have played original music almost exclusively for over 30 years, so I don't do much learning of solos... But when I have, it has almost always benefited my playing in some way.

Even just learning the "cake" parts (reference to a previous post) can be great. After all, there is a reason they are the cake: they stand out to the listener.
 
For me, learning solos note for note pushes my technique and gives me new ideas for my own playing. Running up and down scales makes me a tiny bit better....at running up and down scales.

I guess you see where I come down on this one. ;)
 
ElectricPhase said:
For me, learning solos note for note pushes my technique and gives me new ideas for my own playing. Running up and down scales makes me a tiny bit better....at running up and down scales.

I guess you see where I come down on this one. ;)
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True, if you're only running up and down the scales. But it's all, for me, about application. Running up and down is the most basic and earliest. In the early days when I learned a scale I just ran with it and played music. If I learned a solo, which I rarely ever did, I would see exactly what scale, where the fingers laid and know where to use the scales for that type thing in the future. But my POV was always music comes directly from scales.
 
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It doesn't matter. You have to internalize them if that's your goal. Take your unplugged guitar when your watching TV and get them in your muscle memory.
The problem with the solo out of context comes from not knowing why what happens when in a song.
This is a whole new story called music theory, it hasn't to be boring at all, youtube is full of good stuff...
 
Both. You want to learn the riffs and leads of the song as best you can. And you want to practice scales and pick techniques to give you your own ingredients. At first, shoot for note-for-note accuracy. When you hit an uncomfortable snag in performance, you'll have a library of stuff you can slip into the chord or phrase of the moment, and then fall back into note-for-note when a comfortable part comes around again,
 
Another helpful tool is sing a program like transcribe to slow it down. Slowly play over it bring the speed up until you fall apart, the. Go back down, then back up, etc. a few days of obsession should help out.
 
I would strongly recommend practicing solos to a metronome. Our ears get used to 'leaning' on the track when we play along to a song. It's analogous to hearing someone sing along to a song, then sing to a karaoke track or something without vocals.

If you can nail your parts to just a click or a drum machine, re-adding the rest of the instrumentation will be icing on the cake. It takes a lot of work, but it will develop your control and confidence and command of what you play.

I'll even go so far as to master a solo and have the a click play only beats 2&4, or the upbeats or have a click that "drops out" and returns at certain intervals.
 
Obviously it depends on what your goals are and what you're trying to accomplish. For me I never felt as though I needed to do a lot of transcriptions. Now there have also been times when I thought I should have done more transcriptions. But knowing the fretboard better and it's harmonic layout helped tremendously, especially when playing and improvising over dense chord changes a lot, incessantly practicing scales and arpeggios was the way for me.

Now I haven't practiced scales or arpeggios in many years. No longer feel the need. But I do do other technical exercises quite a bit. Still don't feel the need for learning solos. I think when you have a firm grip on what you're doing, you're direction, style and vibe learning solos is really just changing skin and points of view. But for me music is such a personal thing. I think of instrumentalists in music as personalities. I like having a personality, not someone else's. But that's a very personalized policy by of view. Ive never met anyone else who felt that way. Lol.
 
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