Melodic guitar solos/technique that transcends the instrument

PeachyDragon · 2012-01-07T14:44:58+00:00

Have you noticed that some guitarists manage to do this and most don't? Some guys make the guitar sound like a voice. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a Brian M...

Melodic guitar solos/technique that transcends the instrument

Werner-Carstens

Wow Vic, forgot about the local hero theme. Thanks for reminding me. It is awesome composition.

PeachyDragon

Wow, that is awesome. I like it most before the saxophone kicks in.
He truly has a great gift for composition. makes me want to check out his work some more.

vic

PeachyDragon wrote: Wow, that is awesome. I like it most before the saxophone kicks in.
He truly has a great gift for composition. makes me want to check out his work some more.

Me too. But the general arrangement is also awesome...eg that Hammond moaning somewhere in the background....vital to the piece ?

deefstes

Vic wrote: One of the very first soundtracks Knopfler did was for the movie "Local Hero"..... 1983.....beautiful theme song....listen to that guitar at work...

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Great stuff! While we're on the topic of 80's movie soundtracks by Knopfler, allow me to submit on of my favourites, much along the same vein. This is the soundtrack to the 1987 movie "The Princess Bride".
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It caught my attention then and to this day I still think it's a great song (and movie) :yup:

vic

deefstes wrote:
Vic wrote: One of the very first soundtracks Knopfler did was for the movie "Local Hero"..... 1983.....beautiful theme song....listen to that guitar at work...

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Great stuff! While we're on the topic of 80's movie soundtracks by Knopfler, allow me to submit on of my favourites, much along the same vein. This is the soundtrack to the 1987 movie "The Princess Bride".

It caught my attention then and to this day I still think it's a great song (and movie) :yup:

Beautiful Deefs ! I have forgotten this one....thanks for posting.

Mark is the Man... 8)

vic

Pinch wrote: Wow Vic, forgot about the local hero theme. Thanks for reminding me. It is awesome composition.

My pleasure.

Here is Mark with Jimmy Nail...unmistakably Knopfler My apologies for overpopulating PeachyDragon's thread with Mark Knopfler...... ?

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deefstes

Vic wrote: Here is Mark with Jimmy Nail...unmistakably Knopfler My apologies for overpopulating PeachyDragon's thread with Mark Knopfler...... ?

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Ja man, that' another great song. Vic, you seem to know the Knop very well, are there any of his albums that you can recommend for this kind of music? I like dire Straits but that is something totally different. I'd like to get myself some Knopfler stuff more like these last few songs that have been posted. Any recommendations?

PeachyDragon

Vic wrote:
Pinch wrote: Wow Vic, forgot about the local hero theme. Thanks for reminding me. It is awesome composition.
My pleasure.

Here is Mark with Jimmy Nail...unmistakably Knopfler My apologies for overpopulating PeachyDragon's thread with Mark Knopfler...... ?

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No problem Vic. As long as people can tolerate me constantly saying BLAH BLAH Brian May BLAH BLAH Queen BLAH BLAH (Insert some other stubborn view PeachyDragon has here) etc. ?

PeachyDragon

deefstes wrote: Please tell me I have simply overlooked the post where one of you fine gents mention Gary Moore? I mean melodic solo, transcending the instrument, blurring the lines between notes, frets and phrases, making the guitar sound like a voice - surely you must be talking about Gary Moore.

Exhibit 1:

I have a strange question to ask. Has anyone noticed that Gary Moore's solos, although amazing,
tend to have a more solid deliberate sortof sound. Like he has to consciously will every note into being (on the slow stuff)
While the Brian May/George Harrison stuff sortof floats over the top of the music casually?
My playing generally has the quality of the Gary Moore sound where the notes sound slightly more laboured.
Maybe it's the EQ. Brian M and George H Have more toppy sounds and Garry M has a more middy sound.

AlanRatcliffe

PeachyDragon wrote: I have a strange question to ask. Has anyone noticed that Gary Moore's solos, although amazing,
tend to have a more solid deliberate sortof sound. Like he has to consciously will every note into being (on the slow stuff)

Gary is a harder playing guitarist, he leans into most notes, even on the slower stuff. Plays with absolute conviction. May has a very light touch, more precise and lots of legato.

deefstes wrote:I'd like to get myself some Knopfler stuff more like these last few songs that have been posted. Any recommendations?

I think Knopfler is one of the truly great players and a wonderful songwriter and composer too (I have thirty-odd CDs of his, and most are great in their own right). Even as part of Dire Straits - you need to listen to complete albums (especially the tracks that weren't singles) to get a good sense of what his capabilities are (Love over Gold is one of my all time favourite albums). Most of his solo stuff has a more British folk feel and lots of Celtic (both Scot and Irish) influence, while his soundtracks are often more delicate and gentle. His albums with the Notting Hillbillies are well worth a listen and Neck and Neck with Chet Atkins is a classic. Solo albums of note: Golden Heart and The Ragpicker's Dream

PeachyDragon

deefstes wrote:I'd like to get myself some Knopfler stuff more like these last few songs that have been posted. Any recommendations?

evolucian

Lol, this derailed into a Knopfler homage... not that I'm complaining. I like his stuff.

A further derail meant for Peachy so I'll put it in brackets (You can get away with those blunders in rock - just saying. I don't know if you mean techniques as in playing techniques or composition techniques... but I'll go on the latter. When playing outside in a rock context your goal is still to get home. The intermediate goal is adding super tensions to the chords. Now these tensions can be seen as floating out of key or as two keys in one - the polychord magnet. The third way is seeing these chords being soloed over as having being borrowed from every other key instead of the home key. Now it's not acceptable to have this going on too long cos the listener will begin to feel restless, hence the home goal. )

The Princess Bride happens to be one of my favourite movies for a few years now... and I agree, that soundtrack is brilliant ?

To play with a vocal style... you have to have a good sense of dynamics. This goes over into how you pick as well as do any of your legato techniques. We can use those celtic women banshee wailers as a reference here (not an official term - just one I can only think of now as I'm still waking up). Simulating their vocal style which has jumps between notes with a slight rise in pitch from the tailend of the last note and all of a sudden at the new pitch can be interpreted to guitar like this - play note, start curling (minimal bending for those that get lost with curl) and hammer to target note. It creates a very ethereal sound compared to what is considered normal guitar playing. Now that hammer can be a hard hammer to accent the note.. or a soft hammer to sort of create the gliding into the note feel with no difference between your hammer and the previous note volume. If you can make your hammer even softer you get the effect of the voice trailing off.

Then there's the bagpipe thing I like. Anyway.. too much of a derail. Hope there was something here for someone to use.

PeachyDragon

evolucian wrote: To play with a vocal style... you have to have a good sense of dynamics. This goes over into how you pick as well as do any of your legato techniques. We can use those celtic women banshee wailers as a reference here (not an official term - just one I can only think of now as I'm still waking up). Simulating their vocal style which has jumps between notes with a slight rise in pitch from the tailend of the last note and all of a sudden at the new pitch can be interpreted to guitar like this - play note, start curling (minimal bending for those that get lost with curl) and hammer to target note. It creates a very ethereal sound compared to what is considered normal guitar playing. Now that hammer can be a hard hammer to accent the note.. or a soft hammer to sort of create the gliding into the note feel with no difference between your hammer and the previous note volume. If you can make your hammer even softer you get the effect of the voice trailing off.
Then there's the bagpipe thing I like. Anyway.. too much of a derail. Hope there was something here for someone to use.

What do you mean by Curling?

evolucian

its a bend not quite to pitch. In blues those little 1/4 note bends are called curls. In the example above you could do a 1/4 note bend or even a huge curl of a 3/4 bend... just the hammered note must be a standard unaltered note - so you have to get rid of that bend without it interfering with the next note or the pitch dropping noticeably.

Malkav

ITT: Subjectiveness ?

evolucian

^ lol... I really like that one... hahahaha

BobC

Kid looks like he's in the market for a good exorcist......... ?

PeachyDragon

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Gary is a harder playing guitarist, he leans into most notes, even on the slower stuff. Plays with absolute conviction. May has a very light touch, more precise and lots of legato.

Amazing, I tried one of those girly girly thin shark-fin plectrums that I never like...
and actually loved it. I could never stand the sound they made acoustically but on the
amp you don't hear it... Just goes to show... Been playing with plectrums for 11 years and I pretty
much got influenced by guys like Brian May and Slash to use heavier plectrums. It really
does make my playing sound lighter and bouncier. It might even improve my rhythm guitar.
I'm one of those players who can write out complicated rhythms on paper and who can
play everything reasonably well live, but when I'm in the studio my rhythm is just sub par. ?
No matter how much time I've spent with metronomes or without in my life thus far.