Learn Solos or Practice Scales?

RoshRoslin said:
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.
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That is seriously good advice. Filling in the rhythm and chords in your mind is very good practice. In addition to confidence, it forces you to really understand what you're playing.

henryrobinett said:
I like having a personality, not someone else's.
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I get that. Completely. I wish I had the technique to mimic other players exactly....but to be honest, my combination of vibrato, timing nuances, and technique 'cheats' always means that I sound like me. It's taken a long, long time--but I'm actually pretty happy with that.
 
Practicing and getting better at scales will give you tools that will speed up learning others solo's, and will help you make your own also. If you only learn someone's solo and don't know the architecture from where it came, you will only be able to copy someone else.
I know a three great local players that I grew up seeing occasionally but all they did was learn cover songs (which they were excellent at) but I heard each ones attempt at writing original music later and thought it very bland and generic sounding.
It's best to do both (scales & others solo's) , but as henry said above it's nice to have your own thing available too. I would rather know the architecture of a solo rather than play it exactly as the original. My personal favorites for me is when you can hit signature sounds of someone else but add something personal also.
 
Geezerjohn said:
Playing scales is not music. Scales tell you who is related to who, and how they are related, but simply playing scales (or arpeggios for that matter) is not music.
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Of course it's not music. YOU have to provide the music. But the music is ALWAYS tucked inside those scales and chords/arpeggios somewhere. If you have enough musical awareness already you can ferret the music out with those basic tools. Between major/minor scales, pentatonic, blues, diminished, whole tone, all varieties of synthetic modes and alterations, enclosures and embellishments - but mainly with musical taste and awareness of NOT PLAYING SCALES, you can actually learn how to play real music, given you LISTEN to a hell of a lot of it.

All I'm saying really is that there's more than an infinity ways of doing this. And most of the roads are right, or can be, given enough effort and talent.
 
Both is kewl. I resemble the same issue bro. Biggest problem is the "band" will not follow the,(proper form, chords, tempo, key) or they want to change it at the last minute. I learn the solo in my DAW. Slow it way down in the DAW, and work up tempo until I can play it without a backing track.
When the band hoses it up, yes, I need to know my fret board well enough to improvise.
If you can't go note for note, at least get the opening line accurate, and try to end on the same end of the phrase.
LB usually works the same riff going up in octaves, then he doubles the timing with fast arpeggios in the last phrase.
Simplify the hard phrases, and make sure to play the line SLOW and ACCURATE when practicing before putting down the guitar for the night.
Your muscle memory WILL remember how you last played the line..right, or wrong. Very important to do it RIGHT before going to sleep!!
Read this: http://lifehacker.com/5799234/how-muscle-memory-works-and-how-it-affects-your-success
 
Yeah. When I play a solo all I have to know are the chords. Even if I learn part of a solo I first have to learn the chords so I know what the notes mean. But I never learned solos for bands. The guys never expected me to, as far as I know. But I never played speed or death metal tunes. :)
 
One must walk before they can run.
Scales and modes AND the application of such things are important to understand for musicality.
Learning solos note for note is also an important way to learn and understand how all the notes come together in service of the song. These things will help, regardless of how you implement them. Even to expand your knowledge and finger dexterity.

Personally, I play in some Tributes, so note for note is important for me and the music we play, yet if I couldn't improvise things would get really messy if I made a mistake or got lost. See where I'm going here??
Understanding what you are playing is equally important as what you are playing. IMO it becomes a dance that creates music, not a scale or a solo. These things are there to SERVE the music.
Most of us are in bands after all, not guitar virtuoso gigs. The guitar may be an important part of the music, yet it's only a PART, the band is a group.

OK, so in the end it's great to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that makes each of us a better player. One key for me is to expose weaknesses...whether that be in reproducing a classic solo or working on finger dexterity or playing along with a backing track to improve flow and note choice or creating something from scratch. Open yourself to other ideas and even styles. I always learn something.

Do it all, and have fun doing it. Or you might as well quit now and have fun doing something else.
 
Lots of good stuff above.

Learning scales will help you figure out solos and getting scale patterns under your fingers will help with your playing.

In terms of making your solos indestructible, you'll want to practice a lot. Slower and faster than the song tempo. With a click only.

Also, take the licks and apply them to other songs. Use them in different keys. Switch them from major <-> minor, etc.

The more you can move the licks around in tempo, key and chord flavor, you'll lock it in and be able to play the original song and borrow your favorite licks for improvisation.
 
I do both. I learn modes, etc. and exotic scales and apply them over backing tracks to hone my improvisational skills.

I love this Persian scale (love how she says to play 'mysteriously') and have been working with it lately:



I also learn solos that I like and are unique. I always find that you'll pick up on phrasings and note clusters that are totally foreign to you. When I struggle learning a particular solo/passage I take that as a good thing since I'm now out of my personal comfort zone and into somewhere new.

For my new band I've learned the solos note-for-note for Aqualung and Black Betty (and several others that you can't just wank through)...both had phrasing and note selections/runs that were new to me and were welcome additions to the tool box.

While both methods are somewhat complementary, I think a balance is the best route....for me anyway.
 
I learn the solo (but leave room for me to do what I want.) A challenging solo is a question of 'links' for me. 10 seconds of solo, learn it and play it over and over. Especially on fast parts, play it slowly until you get the muscle memory on it, then slowly speed it up until you feel comfortable all the time with it.

After you feel you've got each of the bits and pieces the way you want it, start adding one at a time (start, next part, etc). It takes surprisingly less time than you think.

But once I have it to where I'm close, I leave room to let my own inspiration come it. The solo is very recognizable, but I have some space to just 'do what I want' in there and make it my own. The purpose behind the 'pieces' is that I can start at what everyone expects, then branch off, and come back to the original solo at the next point. Most of all ENJOY yourself, it makes a huge difference.

Good luck.
R
 
electronpirate said:
But once I have it to where I'm close, I leave room to let my own inspiration come it. The solo is very recognizable, but I have some space to just 'do what I want' in there and make it my own.
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Oh yeah ... that old one. It's called 'that bit of the solo is too feckin hard' :p:)

I'm a learn the solo type .... always hated scales.
 
Back to your initial choosed song as example to work on your skills.
Instead of playing the original solo, try to improvise around the chords in the song keys.
Here it would be mostly B in the verse, plus Am & E in the chorus.
The downside of scales at the beginning could be imagine the scale instead of hearing what's going on, the upside later when they are in your blood is good to know wich notes could be played in which key (all imho of course).
 
As limiting as scale practice can be they can when applied correctly be rather liberating. They help you comprehend and "pattern out" the fretboard in relation to chords and arpeggios while also help you getting from "a" to "b", sort of speak, when improvising. Like many have already stated both are important ways to practice. I used to play "composed" solos so this is no way meant as bashing but today I find most composed solos boring. Unfortunately not very many guitarists in metal can actually improvise and no matter how much technical skill and lavish "design" is put into a composed solo it just never beats the sensation and feeling of a well improvised ditto.
In order to get to a good level of improvisation you need to practice both but remember to spend time actually applying your scales and arpeggios into playing in a morr musical context. Play around with smaller pieces where you feel comfortable and combine in different ways while improvising around them,even just a few notes over and over.
Then you can go back to actual scale practice to increase that comfort zone.
Remember it's way more impressive to play four notes with super passion, feel and variation in attack and vibrato than poorly hammering off scales all over the fretboard :)
 
Definitely both, and I can't reiterate enough the value in learning the actual phrases and riffs while playing P&W music. You're essentially a cover band, and the crowd knows what to expect. Best to give them what they expect to hear unless it's markedly and intentionally different.

I'll tell you what though - I've been playing in front of people for 20 years, and there are still times where I'll lose my head and botch a note or even an entire phrase.

One thing I never truly mastered is the actual fretboard notes. I know scales and shapes enough that if I know where the tonic is, I know where I can lay stuff down - but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what actual notes I was playing. I'd have to stop and think, which means I'd no longer be playing. So that's what I've been working on this year - memorizing the fretboard as much as I know piano keys.
 
philipacamaniac said:
Definitely both, and I can't reiterate enough the value in learning the actual phrases and riffs while playing P&W music. You're essentially a cover band, and the crowd knows what to expect. Best to give them what they expect to hear unless it's markedly and intentionally different.

I'll tell you what though - I've been playing in front of people for 20 years, and there are still times where I'll lose my head and botch a note or even an entire phrase.

One thing I never truly mastered is the actual fretboard notes. I know scales and shapes enough that if I know where the tonic is, I know where I can lay stuff down - but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what actual notes I was playing. I'd have to stop and think, which means I'd no longer be playing. So that's what I've been working on this year - memorizing the fretboard as much as I know piano keys.
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Good point about fretboard notes. You can spend a ton of time learning the notes - you can also spend it playing!

The actual note names don't add much value. If you know the note number in the key you are playing, then it stays the same through all keys, and it's highly relevant to the original question because it makes scale practice and understanding much more valuable. If you know a minor scale in every position you basically just need to be able to move it around to cover modes too, and voila; you are ready to move on to exotic scales :)
 
Desmo808 said:
This was very mesmerizing and enlightening. My band has a new song where I'm completely stumped on what to do for the lead. I will give this a try. Thanks for sharing this.
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By completely stumped, are you looking for something exoctic or are you struggling to translate the chord progression into the right scale(s) that would work?
 
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