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Be Creative !
(30 Oct 02)
Jam
Wow... jamming. Good idea, huh?
Well, I don't mean jamming as in "Find yourself a drummer and a bassist and play all your old standard licks while jamming on "Hey Joe".
Nope. What I mean by jamming is "Put your licks and exercises into an actual musical context".
I know what I am talking about. I used to sit and work on all those cool shred-licks for hours. Then, when it came to actual jamming with some friends, I went back to the same old standard blues licks.
I didn't apply those exercises, those new licks to my playing. And this is what I mean when I say "jamming".
Shortly after I started practicing a whole lot, I developed a certain
procedure: whenever I was "done" with sitting there, practicing some licks with a metronome, I put on a song I liked and jammed over it, trying to incorporate those exercises, those licks I was working on, into my soloing.
Sometimes, that's tough. What you wanna try is: Try to have it sound like a natural thing. You wanna avoid having it sound like:
"Solo-Solo-COOL LICK-Solo"
Another comparison to make clear what I mean: Imagine you're trying to increase your vocabulary. Like, you wanna include some big words which will help you to get your point across. Now, you wanna use those new words just as naturally as you use your basic vocabulary.
Imagine you talk to someone and you go like: "Ok, I went to this bar, and there was a really good band playing... the crowd flipped out and it was...uhhhhmmm... PAN-DE-MONIUM" ... Know what I mean? The "big word" (I know, it's a silly example) stands out, sounds kinda insecure. So what you wanna do is use your new, cool licks just as naturally as you use your basic blues-licks.
That is something I always admired about my favorite players and influences... when Eddie Van Halen played a tapping lick, it made sense and sounded just as natural and "confident" as the preceding and following licks.
I wasn't able to do it that way. I was playing a solo, and when I wanted to play my new cool lick, it always kinda stood apart from the rest. So, I recommend to jam a lot and use those licks and exercises in context with your improvisation.
Back then, I just put on a record by some bands I liked, like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Bros, Sabbath or whomever.
These days, I either take a backing track (I do have some jamtracks by Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and others, and I also do have "no lead guitar" tracks by the Eric Vandenberg Band as well), or I program some basic track on my hardware sequencer (Yamaha QY 300)... just some basic drum pattern, a bass-line, maybe some piano-chords.
Approaching a solo / Constructing a solo
Now, this is a HUGE topic, so for now, lemme just tell you about two basic approaches to construct a solo...
1.) The "block"-approach
Now, think of your solo as a song by itself. Listen to a regular pop song. There is a structure there, i.e. Intro-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Break-Chorus
Now, for the listener, that is important, cause if a part reoccurs, he / she is familiar with it. He / she understands the structure. Know what I mean?
Why don't we approach a solo like that? Take one melody or one lick or short phrase as an "A-part". Play that, and next, play something different, at about the same length as the A-part. This is your B-part. Then, return to the A-Part, play it again, maybe slightly differently (change the phrasing, or move it up or down an octave). Then, play another B-part, maybe playing something completely different than the first time.
Just to give you an example for this approach, I made up a simple 8 bar-solo. Check it out:
Click here to hear the MIDI file
Bars 1 and 2 contain the "A-Part". The next 2 bars are our "B-Part". Then, in bars 5 & 6, the A-Part re-occurs, just an octave higher. Finally, in bars 7&8, we have ANOTHER B-Part, but it's not an repetition of the first one. So it's kinda like: "2 bars: Theme / 2 bars: free part / 2 bars: Variation on Theme / 2 bars: another free part".
How about that? With some practicing, you can even improvise that way. Sure, you can construct a solo that way, but when you improvise, you can approach your solo that way, too. I think it's kinda cool for the listener when there's a re-occurring part, something to grab on to.
OK, feel free to experiment with that.
Approach #2: This is what I call the "jazz approach", just a name I made up for it. Why? Cuz... one day I heard some saxophone player in a jazz club. He was really jamming with his band, and then he did something really awesome IMHO: He started to play the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Then, he repeated it again, with slight variation, slurring it a bit, incorporating some chromatic passing notes etc.
And every time he repeated it, he built on it, with variations, adding parts. Eventually, he had turned the melody into something completely different, although the original melody still was "shining through".
So what did I do? Right, I went home, grabbed my guitar and did something similar. I started with a single, easy melody and jammed on that, changing it, adding to it etc.
Then I one day listened to Steve Vai's "Passion & Warfare" album (which to this day is one of my favorite albums). And one of my favorite tunes of his is "For The Love Of God".
And here, he did the same! He played the melody in a very simple way at first, just playing the strict notes. Then, when repeating it, he changed his phrasing, kept adding stuff, used stuff like whammy bar-dips or octave displacement etc.
So... how about that approach? Try it!
Record a simple chord progression or take a simple jam track (and this is something for ALL of you, whether you like jazz, rock or whatever !!!). Then, start by making up a simple melody, and repeat it, changing it again and again.
Try changing certain aspects of the melody. I.e., try to change the vibrato. Play the melody the first time without applying any vibrato. The next time, add some vibrato, maybe a slight one. Then, add an extreme one.
Or, play the melody straight the first time, then play it quite staccato the next time. Use chromatic passing notes to approach the actual notes of the melody. Or replace one or two notes with their equivalent an octave higher or lower.
I guess you get the idea.
There sure are many, many approaches to a solo, and those were just two. So, try to remember the stuff in this article, and make up your own approaches... experiment, jam a lot, be CREATIVE !
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Eric started playing the guitar at age 10. He attended GIT and studied with Scott Henderson, Brett Garsed, Dan Gilbert amo. Eric is involved in several bands and recording projects and his instrumental debut - Hidden Creek - plus his instructional book Talking Hands - A Guide To Contemporary Lead Guitar Techniques is available HERE
Visit his website at www.ericvandenberg.net
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