How Do You Learn A Guitar Solo?

Jimmy25 · June 24, 2012

How do you learn a guitar solo when you're just an intermediate player? figure it out by ears, read tabs, or simply watch video tutorials of the song on sites like Youtube etc?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I think figuring out a song by ears/listening is the best way to keep it in your memory and not forget the solo easily, and also it kind of creates a bit of your own way of playing/style, but it may takes longer time and effort to figure out the notes and sometimes there may be mistakes?

And just following video tutorials to learn a solo may take less time to get the solo down, but you may forget the solo easier in the future?

Maybe it's not the same for everyone, maybe different people find different ways more efficient than another to learn and memorize. So I was just wondering, what has been your most efficient way / most used way of learning a solo from your experience? Like for me, is it okay that at the moment I'm learning solos only by watching video tutorials on Youtube since I'm just an intermediate player? Is this how you guys learn at least at the beginning?

BTW. Do you guys actually check to see every notes you're playing when learning a solo? cz the person teaching on Youtube would always say which string which note. Is it just for teaching purpose, or does the person learning the solo should knows it too. Because I don't really know what notes I'm playing. I just repeat repeat repeat playing each section until I memorize the shape or pattern.

JR13 · June 24, 2012

i learn them by ear and try to figure out what scale or pattern is being used

scolfax · June 24, 2012

When I care about going note-for-note I can't learn by ear fast enough. I find tab or a video. After I have the fingering down I use Amazing Slow Downer to play along with as I get up to speed.

soundcreation · June 24, 2012

any way I can. I use any and all resources including my ear.

LesPaulFetish · June 24, 2012

any way I can. I use any and all resources including my ear.

This. You want to use all of the above.

caveman · June 24, 2012

I listen to the solo enough times so that it's in my head and then use any resources I can find to learn how to play it in my style.

DaveAronow · June 24, 2012

I learned my first forty thousand songs old school, by ear, by listening on vinyl, lifting up the needle, trying to copy what I heard one note at a time, put the needle back down, play along with the record, wash rinse repeat till I have learned the entire solo and can play it up to speed, and try to mimic all the style nuances of the guitarist you are emulating. This way takes longer, yes, but we didn't have youtube back in the day. I simply didn't know of any better way, so it was slow at first.

The beauty of this method, which users of other methods dont seem to get to as thoroughly, is that once you have done this long enough, you have heard every arpeggio, scale fragment,.melody fragment, phrase, etc bla bla bla so many times over and over again, you have copied them and matched them on your guitar, you will get so good and fast at it that you dont even need a guitar in your hands to learn a solo or a song anymore. Your brain already knows where the notes you are hearing are on your guitar because you have seen and heard it all a million times before. In the long run, there is no greater asset for learning new material, or playing out of your head than a well developed ear.

You will get to the point that you can track music so fast with your brain and your ears, that you can listen to music and actually play along in real time even if you have never heard the song before. You can also do this playing out of your head, jamming in real time with a band or backing track, whatever, playing your own ideas in your head.

I simply dont know of any way to be able to do this without a well developed ear, and I dont know of a better way to develop your ear than by using it, honing it, by listening and trying, slowly at first, to copy what you hear. You do this long enough and you can't not get good at it.

All this said, other methods have their uses and I use all of them really, but I use them more as supplements to ear learning.

Obviously, I'm not going to learn a guitar transcription of Beethovens' Entire fifth symphony with note for note accuracy without some sort of tab or written notation. But I could in fact get damned close without it.

A well trained ear, in my opinion, is the single most valuable asset in all of music. Once you have it, it is a direct shortcut to getting to where you want to go musically over people that dont have it. But there is no shortcut to getting that ear. You HAVE to put the time in, hear those scales, phrases and patterns and match them up with the corresponding notes on your guitar long enough to where it becomes second nature.

And it WILL become second nature. A good ear is mostly not inherited. It is earned by development. Anyone can have one. But you have to earn it. Once you do, an entire world of music is open to you that other people won't have access to.

Fenderman1991 · June 24, 2012

At first, I'll go for it just with my ear, generally try and figure out the scale or whatever they're using and go from there. I don't really care if I play it exactly as they do as long as the notes are right (I'll figure it out higher up on the neck on the lower strings than lower on the neck with the higher strings).

Ancient Mariner · June 24, 2012

Tab, video & ear. In any order that helps.

adlo76 · June 24, 2012

I start be KNOWING the solo in my head. I should be able to hum it before I even pick up the guitar. If I can do that, learning on guitar is much easier.

knotty · June 24, 2012

First, buy your 59 LP and Dumble. No point otherwise. (according to some on here)

LesPaulFetish · June 24, 2012

First, buy your 59 LP and Dumble. No point otherwise. (according to some on here)

A 58's okay, but you look like a clown.

DavidInIowa · June 24, 2012

I have the best success combining as many resources as I can.

It's always fun to watch live performance videos. This lets me see what kind of fingerings are used or how a song might be split between two guitarists.

humbuckerstrat · June 24, 2012

When i first started learning licks off of records (about 40 years ago) I did what Dave did: slow down records to a lower speed on the turntable, and cop licks that way. I did this even before I knew the techniques that guitarists used, like bending, sliding, etc. I didn't know anything about bending until I got a lead guitar method book. And those method books were rare in those days. Then I learned the tricks that blues and rock guitarists used, and I could tell pretty much what they were doing on the records.

Then I got a cassette player and recorded songs off of FM radio, and I could cop licks by playing the same part over and over again until I learned the whole thing. But I couldn't slow down the parts like I could with a record and a record player.

Then around 1990 I started learning music theory, how chords and scales are related, etc. It's not as difficult as you might think. I tried to get into figuring chords to songs, but i was never very good @ that. To play rhythm to a song, I would have to get tab books, etc, from a music store. Luckily, there's a lot of tab available these days, even free on the internet.

But like Dave said, once you get your ear trained, and you're versed in the techniques that a particular guitarist uses, you can pretty much cop solos by ear. Unless the solo is uber fast, like a Van Halen solo

But when I was learning how to do that, classic rock and blues licks was what i was learning, and they weren't all that fast.

mosiddiqi · June 24, 2012

Always by ear, never by Tab for me. It's just what I'm used to. In the old days (yes, I know zzzzz) it was "lift the needle off the record" then "pause the cassette" and now it's SO easy to do this..I use "Transcribe" but there are other options that people may prefer. I just find that if I learn it note for note by ear, then it stays with me for ever pretty much and I can still take liberties if I want to. But, the process of trying to get it note for note is just about the best thing you can do to improve overall.

humbuckerstrat · June 24, 2012

This would be an awesome thing to have, if you8 have a spare $400.00

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/boss-eband-js-8-audio-player-with-guitar-multi-effects

Montychristo · June 24, 2012

Learn some of it by ear, but eventually give up and search for tabs. Doesn't everyone?

mosiddiqi · June 24, 2012

Learn some of it by ear, but eventually give up and search for tabs. Doesn't everyone?

I honestly don't see why?

Jkater · June 24, 2012

I'm also one of the crowds here who, being old, had to do it the slow rewarding way: by ear, putting the needle on the record back again and again. These were also my most intense learning years and I was learning one guitar piece after the other to the point that I couldn't tell how many songs/pieces I have learned by ear. Countless and like Dave said, I could figure out many of them practiclly instantly in my head. I became also good at finding out quickly which alternate tuning it was in. Later when good tabs for very difficult pieces were widely available, I used that as an aid to get there even quicker (why not?) but i never lost the ability to use my experience and developped skills to learn pieces. I quite often follow my own hunch about fingerings that don't match the one on the tabs.

A prerequisite for me, and it mirrors what Adlo and others have said, is that I learn the piece or solo in my head before really going to work on the guitar. There simply is no point looking for notes that aren't formed in my head yet, does it?

Doctor Morbius · June 24, 2012

I use Audacity, select a section at a time, slow it down and loop it. Repeat and rinse.

I will use tabs or a video lesson too. Tabs, however, are quite often wrong.

thecornman · June 24, 2012