Writing solos and bridging parts

I'm great at writing songs every part for every instrument except the solos on guitar.....How can I become better at writing solos?? I just don't even ever know where to start!! I have at least 8 - 10 songs written but only one has a solo. I play trash metal. So I wann write one that a fast, shreddy and use lots of whammy bar. Here are my Main influences: Eddie Van Halen, George Lynch, Dimebag, Overkill, Exodus, Slayer and Morbid Angel.

Since your problem doesn't lie in songwriting, exactly, it seems like you might do better with this topic in one of the guitar forums, but it might be interesting to explore it as a songwriting question, which is probably something you have in mind.

I've always been more oriented to music with a fair amount of improvisation, myself, so the notion of writing a solo isn't something that comes natural.

Still, there have been more than a few times, particularly when recording, when the merits of sitting down and actually working something out in advance (just this once, honest, muses of improvisation ) made some sense.

There was a time when I was trying to push myself beyond playing by structure and habit that I thought to myself, enough with all these patterns and riffs and runs. I'm going to play one note if I have to, all the way through the song, until I feel something... it was kind of like a grounding process. It was like all those riffs and runs were voices in my head that were always shouting when I was looking for what I wanted to say, so I'd say them instead of what I felt. To draw a rough and not very consistent analogy.

You spend a lot of time learning technique and that typically means absorbing other people's playing approach -- but often in fragments that probably aren't unified by the source musician's philosophy and vision. That makes for a big jumble of fragments and ideas -- a great toolbox, if you approach it right, but all too likely a trap that can delay you in finding your own musical voice. It's like a prose writer... when he starts out, he's manipulating various cliche thoughts and statements... it's how we learn. If he keeps on in that vein he may become glib and facile, a slick writer -- but it will take him longer to find his 'true' voice -- or at least a voice that is truer to who he is.

Think about why you're drawn to the kind of music you want to play and try to find a way of expressing that in your solo -- even if it doesn't sound like everyone else's...

I write solos a lot, and I can tell you, it's hard.

I used to feel like Blue2Blue, that solos should be improvised. Sometimes I still work that way, but not usually. Now, I prefer to map things out to a large degree.

I'm using the word "write" to mean "decide ahead of time". I don't always transcribe the solos in tab or notation--generally only if it's complicated & hard to remember.

Anyway, there are two methods that come to mind that helped me learn to write solos.

1) Study the people you want to sound like, one at a time. Take a solo of the guitarist you're studying and learn it note-for-note. Try to mimic the feeling they convey in the solo. Then try to convey a different feeling using the same notes.

Dissect the relation between the notes they play in the solo, and the harmony (the chords the rhythm guitarist plays, the notes the bassist plays). This is probably the biggest thing to learn.

Then change them. Try to express the same emotions and sense of movement using different notes, different rhythms, different articulations (legato instead of staccato, etc.).

This all serves to improve your understanding of how your favorite guitarists solo, and how to take elements of their style and apply them to your style.

2) For a song of your own, try this--hum what you want to play. Then find it on the guitar. You probably have an idea in your head already, what you want your solo to sound like. The problem is getting that idea to sit still so you can study it and make it happen. Humming into a tape recorder will help with that. Obviously, your humming can't convey everything you hear in your head, but it can get you moving in the right direction.

Another good trick, if the humming isn't working for you, is to record 2 bars at a time. Do a bunch of takes until you find something you really like the sound of, then move on to the next 2 bars. When you finish the 16 bars, you go back and smooth the sections, edit a little so they fit together.

That's what I do, mostly. That and practice soloing way too much. Good luck, man.

thanx. Well heres another problem....I have no clue what i want any of the solos to sound like I cant hear a thing. I keep drwing a blank. Complete blank. It getting very frustrating.

start with the melody, and expound on it.

I don't intellectually feel like solos should be improvised.

Lots of great recorded solos seem likely to have been worked out in advance... Jimmy Page comes to mind as someone who clearly (if you've heard the live recordings) thinks better in the calm of the studio.

But I will say that I always feel let down when I hear a guitarist just mimic the studio solo (whether or not he was the one who initially crafted it). No matter how 'perfectly' he plays it, it feels disappointing.

Classical music is not, of course, big on improvisation. An orchestra, with 80 or even more people spread out over a quarter acre (or so), is like an 18th century army -- totally dependent on discipline, from the lowliest back row fiddler to the soloist and conductor up front. The conductor does have some leeway, he can can adjust and rearrange (or have it done), but he has to do it in advance and the orchestra has to learn and practice it that way.

And the soloist must, by and large, stay pretty close to what is on the page. People sometimes take some liberties, adding favorite little minor moves, a little extra vibrato here, a slightly different trill there, or using 'nonstandard' approaches to fingering/positionging (in, say, the case of violin soloists), but by and large, they're expected to stay pretty close to the pocket.

At least until the soloist gets to the cadenza, if the work has one.

In the cadenza, the soloist is often faced with an opportunity -- or a dilemma, depending on how one views it. The cadenza is the 'soloist's solo' in a manner of speaking. The orchestra falls out and the soloist does his thing. Even so, most classical soloists use pre-written, established, or traditional cadenzas, solo sections that are passed along, sometimes adding their own bits and sometimes staying 'faithful' to whatever tradition he has adopted. Occasionally, a soloist goes pretty far off the reservation... but because the cadenza is just a minute or two of solo spotlight in what might be a 40 minute work, a lot of weight can fall on the soloist... it's make or break time, as you can imagine. Being a soloist in front of 80 or so highly driven over-accomplishers in front of audiences that are increasingly hard to summon, a chance that may not come again for a young soloist just breaking out, puts a lot of weight on the playing it safe side...

The song's melody is always a good starting place, although certainly not the only one. (There have been more than a couple of epochal solos that have sound like someone dropped them in from outer space.)

I would say that, if there's such a thing as a traditional approach, it would be to mash up the song's melody with the emotions you want to convey, perhaps jumping off the melody's signature phrases to come to some sort of meta emotional comment.

Another thing to remember about solos... when you're recording, for most pop and rock, shorter is more powerful, more iconic. Give them more than they want and the results probably don't take too much imagination. But give them just enough to leave them wanting more and maybe they'll put another nickel in the jukebox. (Adjust that for inflation, eh?)

right i got that. I like the long shreddy involved complex solos my self. But I totally agree on the short wanting more thing too.

I feel you. I feel the same way. I like improvisation. I feel like I improvise better on a song after I spend time mapping out some possibilities. I might not stick to those mapped-out ideas in a live performance, but I like having that knowledge to refer to.

thanx. Well heres another problem....I have no clue what i want any of the solos to sound like I cant hear a thing. I keep drwing a blank. Complete blank. It getting very frustrating.

That's where the humming thing can come in handy.

I wish I could recommend an album to you, but I'm sure it would be so far away from what you like to listen to that it would be useless to you. Hell, I'll do it anyway...I'll recommend two albums.

Glenn Gould--A State of Wonder

David Grier--I've Got the House to Myself

One's classical, one's bluegrass. But each album is a tour de force course in how to take a melody and make something crazy and new and interesting out of it.

Great post - lots of excellent advice....