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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | How does everyone go about learning a solo. I tend to do it be ear, usually listening to a CD and sometimes playing it over and over and tabbing it note by note.
I'm trying to learn something at the moment though and although it sounds relatively simple, I just can't do it. Instead of a CD I'm using a 20 year old cassette so there's been a lot of stopping and starting.
Can't find the piece on any tab sites so I'm ready to give up. Can you slow a cassette down?
If anyone is interested I'm doing a song called Happy Man by a great Australian band...The Sunnyboys....Muzza and James will have heard of them I'm sure. |
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Joined:
May 2005
Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | Well, unless there's an element of the solo I particularly like and want to learn (in which case I concentrate only on that riff or phrase), I never learn a solo note for note. I just approximate it. Sometimes I make it more complex than the original, sometimes I ignore the whole thing and play what I want. This note-for-note thing has just never been a religion with me. |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | I rip it to the computer, then use a piece of software called "Transcribe". It lets you slow the song down without changing pitch, or changing pitch up or down without changing speed, or isolating bass, etc. It loops sections you want, isolates sections, has note recognition, figures out the tempo, all sort of neat stuff. You get a free 30 day trial. www.seventhstring.com I think. Then it's something like $40.
Although I'm not associated with them, I heartily endorse this software. It's the best tool I've used in 30+ years of trying to learn guitar. Well maybe the electronic tuner is the best tool, but this is almost as good. |
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March 2007
Posts: 843
Location: CA | Just as some people are more adept at learning languages or fixing mechanical stuff, some are better at learning songs from recordings than others. I tend to be in the same class as you — I can figure out about 60% of what I listen to. The other 40% I can listen to a million times and never get it. I have to be shown. Once shown by someone better versed, it all seems so simple. How could I have been so dense?
Tabs on sites such as OLGA are helpful if you are trying to dissect a passage or riff. Another huge help to me in just the past year or so are short tutorials on certain songs on YouTube. Perhaps the biggest help is giving up the notion that I will ever be the next Leo Kottke. |
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December 2006
Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | So, I'll bite...
What solo?
I'm trying to figure out some Tim Reynolds stuff myself. Working my way up to Di Meola :D |
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Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by Oddball:
Once shown by someone better versed, it all seems so simple. How could I have been so dense? Oh how so true! In 'The Air That I Breathe' the F to Fm gave me fits until I eff'd up and found it by accident. Back then I didn't have the web or tabs available.
I still say if I had the net back then when I was young, dumb and full of..., I would have kicked azz. (Yeah, riiiight!) |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I never have. I've learned bunches of other stuff, much of it with note for note accuracy, but I've never learned a solo. I learned most of it on an old Sony reel to reel. I could slow the speed down, but it obviously changed the pitch. Cassettes were better than CDs. Digital just doesn't rewind well. I guess I'll always be a rhythm player. |
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Joined:
January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | Originally posted by First Alternate:
This note-for-note thing has just never been a religion with me. I guess I've sounded a bit anal about it, but I'm not religious either when it comes to these things. I doubt I play anything exactly note for note. But sometimes I like to be reasonably close and this particular song is driving me crazy...not to mention SWMBO..."haven't you played that enough?" she yelled yesterday afternoon.
She's at work now so I'm heading back to the cassette player. I'm sure I'll stumble onto it eventually. |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Those SWMBOs just don't like hearing 'practice'. Mine doesn't even like me 'playing', I'm convinced of it.
I am one of those 'anal' types that try to get it note for note, condemned to never actually achieve my goal. However, over the years I've found a number of ways that work for the perpetually mediocre.
1. (you already know this one) listen over and over.
2. Minidisc player. You can 'divide' a song (track) into parts (at critical points) and just repeat the bits you're working on. No need to search with the rewind button any more.
3. (the best method) Use Amazing Slow Downer. It's the corniest name for a piece of software I've ever heard of, but it describes what it does perfectly.
You can slow down (or even speed up) a track, but the 'pitch' doesn't change. If you slow a record down (remember them?), they sounded like Barry White on Valium. Speed them up and you've got Alvin and his buddies.
Another option is you can keep it at the normal speed, but change pitch. If there's a song you want to learn, but it's too high or low for your voice (ALL songs are both too high AND too low for my voice.) you can change the pitch to suit your voice.
It is a free download, but limits you to the first 2 tracks on a CD or the first 1/3 or so of an MP3.
Or you can pay for it and unlock those restrictions.
Or you can download another freebie - Audacity - and stitch 2 X the length of the song of white noise to the end, (or just lengthen the track by copying it all and pasting onto itself twice) and you then get access to the whole song.
There's another one, almost identical, called Riffster. I don't know much about that one as it's Windoze only.
4. The last method I've recently discovered is YouTube. Some of those guys are really crap, but they know some parts of some songs that I don't. and there are some REALLY GOOD players as well. It's easier to watch and listen, than just listen. The limitation of this method is that someone has to have posted the song you're looking for.
My fingers hurt. |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | I usually just "nod" t'Beal (or Temp, or Al, or Matt . . . .) |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | and we just make it up as we go along.... |
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March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | What Cliff said.......
In the immortal words of John Lennon, "I' a rhythmer man, I'm a rhythmer." |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I rarely listen to recordings, but neither is this for solo work. Don't really have the time, and don't want to necessarily lock myself in trying to duplicate somebody else's interpretation, even if it is the original writer's recording, plus there are others in the band who are all doing their own interpretation. We've had about a dozen new pieces thrown at us for the Easter season and the end product is generally a combination of what we all feel. If our fearless leader (the trumpet soloist and part-time rhythym guitarist) wants to stick close to the paper, he'll usually tell us, but generally he lets us be relatively flexible. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | There are several things I do to try to figure out parts of songs. First, listen with good headphones. Second, scour the web for tab, chords, or even sheet music. The web is rarely very accurate, but it at least gets me in the ballpark, sometimes. Next, Youtube to see if I can find the original artist performing it, or someone doing a lesson on it.
Another web source is GuitarVision, which is an animated instructor. Their versions seem to be very very accurate, too. You can loop sections, and you can slow it down as slow as you want.
GuitarTracks Pro is a software package for recording and mixing. It's very powerful, with one feature being a slowdown without changing pitch. Other slowdown software mentioned by others is cheaper, but if you're looking for recording software anyhow, you won't need to also buy a slowdown program. |
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Joined:
August 2006
Posts: 3145
Location: Marlton, NJ | I used Amazing Slow Downer to try and figure out some of the more complicated bits of "Mood For A Day". It works like a charm. |
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February 2008
Posts: 38
Location: Hopkinton, MA | I'm a huge youtube fan. It's the thing that got me playing again. I saw the Justin Sandercoe tutorial on Guns n'Roses, Sweet Child of Mine....Slash's intro and just said "I can do that".
If I can't find a lesson on what I'm looking for, there's usually either a video of someone doing the song, close up on the guitar or something similar. When I can't find what I'm looking for, I move on to some other song that I want to learn.
jack |
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Joined:
April 2006
Posts: 972
Location: PDX | Best Practice is a free version of the Amazing Slow Downer.
However that wont help you because you need a digital input and your's is on tape. Maybe you could download it?
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gh1 |
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solo learning