Help Improving Originality for Solos

[Twitch]

Alright, Im officially over it. Ive spent the last 4 years pretending Im a lead guitarist, and Im sick of it. My solos suck and are boring. Its always the same, start with the root note of the key, usually on the A string, proceed to run through a butchered harmonic minor scale, in the box and end on the root note of the key. Furthermore, I do a lot of fast alternate picking of 3 or 4 notes and maybe the occasional bend up a whole step.

I cant stand it anymore. My solos are rudimentary, and boring. Nothing original, all stock scale runs that all sound pretty much the same. A monkey could easily learn my solos.

Is there anything you guys can do to help my think outside the box and be a little more original? Any help would be appreciated. I just spent 30 minutes beating my head against the wall trying to solo over stuff, I sounded like a 14 year old in GC, if I went outside of my "box". The notes fit, but made no sense, no emotion, no soul. HELP!!!!!

[Devotee]

Just add a wah pedal to your signal chain throw in some tapping runs and harmonic divebombs and you're set. That's what i do anyway and it sounds good to me.

[Mr Sandman]

How much do you practice/ play?
Sometimes playing too much can completely do your head in! That`s what sometimes happens to me anyway...

We all get in `ruts` man...
I find when I`m in a bad rut I just put my guitars away and don`t even think about it for maybe a few weeks or a month... I seem to come back with some fresher ideas and a better overall approach/ attitude...

Of course you can`t always do this if you have band commitments...

[Trussrod]

IIRC Randy Rhoads used to listen to lite jazz and, of course, he played classical guitar. The type of music you like--heavy metal--usually has little harmonic structure to help build a solo. Learn to play along with blues, lite jazz and classical songs. Eventually you'll be able to create melodic ideas that aren't obvious or even implied by the song's structure.

[horns666]

ABSOLUTELY!!! That's exactly what I told my kid. He's put it on the back burner for now and working out. He's an amazing player but he's stuck in the ruts everyone knows and loves.

I told him when he does pick it up don't start were you left off..start anew. Don't fall right back into you comfort zone. But ruts and comfort zones are two different things really.

Remember that YOUR comfort zone is another's different language...it's YOUR sig. That equals originality.

[VitaminG]

Just add a wah pedal to your signal chain throw in some tapping runs and harmonic divebombs and you're set. That's what i do anyway and it sounds good to me.

Kirk?

[Twitch]

But ruts and comfort zones are two different things really.

Remember that YOUR comfort zone is another's different language...it's YOUR sig. That equals originality.

I suppose it could, but I still feel my soloing is not up to par with where I want it to be. I just cant help but feel like I couldnt even hang with Tony Rombola. Whats that take, a wah pedal and alternate picking? Pff, ok yeah I can do that, so can any monkey with half a brain. Its not that I have to prove myself to anyone else by soloing in a way others cant easily mimic, I want to solo good enough to where I can listen to it and think "god damn, I played that, that rocks." Im not feeling my solos that way, they just seem like garbage, first year student noodling to me. Ive got technique, and a few nice tricks up my sleeve but havent really the foggiest fuck how to use them in a way thats not simple and redundant. Theres no phrasing, no soul, no talent really. Just a shit ton of fast scale runs in the same spots, in key. Ive tried doing something melodic, Ive tried piecing various licks together, and it just never fits.

Theres been one solo for one of our songs that Im proud of for originality and I cant seem to replicate the originality again for any other song.

[Ward]

Kirk?

[RacerX]

Alright, Im officially over it. Ive spent the last 4 years pretending Im a lead guitarist, and Im sick of it. My solos suck and are boring. Its always the same, start with the root note of the key, usually on the A string, proceed to run through a butchered harmonic minor scale, in the box and end on the root note of the key. Furthermore, I do a lot of fast alternate picking of 3 or 4 notes and maybe the occasional bend up a whole step.

I cant stand it anymore. My solos are rudimentary, and boring. Nothing original, all stock scale runs that all sound pretty much the same.

Got any vids?

I'd like to see / hear these...you can't be worse than me, bro!

[Twitch]

Ill upload some stuff to my sound click in the morning.

[Mr Sandman]

There`s a batch of really good Marty Friedman lessons on youtube where he`s talking about how to approach stuff differently etc...

There`s some really good shit in there somewhere but they`re all good really and it would`nt hurt to just maybe put your axe down for a few hours and watch them all and listen to what he`s saying.

[Jayster]

Vinnie Moore's video's can give some different perspective as well. + 100 to listening to other forms of music, many of today's top players do things from other 'styles' Zakk Wylde, John 5, etc... employ chicken pickin'(traditionally more of a country thing), Steve Morse is well everywhere with his playing(tastefully so). When I get into a major rut, I listen to a lot of horns(sax mostly). The phrasing is very different to me, and almost always gives me some fresh ideas.

[levantin]

Good call on the phrasing thing, I think we generally forget about phrasing and focus on scales and modes. That being said, learning and memorizing new scales and arpeggios around the neck helps me when I need to write something new.

[Trem]

That Marty Friedman video suggested i think it's called Melodic Phrasing? I have it on VHS in a box somewhere, but yeah it was one of my favorite instructional videos, so check that out.
And as Jayster suggested, try playing to shit you normally wouldn't play to. Way back erm in the 80's i would just jam over mtv videos, whatever they were, Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, just whatever whatever came on. Peter Gabriels' "Big Time" was one i used to like to play over i remember that.

[horns666]

To me, the opposite of trying to be original is watching other guitarist instructional videos.

seriously..

[Trussrod]

To me, the opposite of trying to be original is watching other guitarist instructional videos.

seriously..

Lol...

[Trem]

To me, the opposite of trying to be original is watching other guitarist instructional videos.

seriously..

Well the video in particular i'm talking about is more on the subject of thinking outside the box, not so much here's a lick play it like this. It's a great video.

[horns666]

Well the video in particular i'm talking about is more on the subject of thinking outside the box, not so much here's a lick play it like this. It's a great video.

Yeah..I know. I was just being myself...a tool! I actually worn that VHS out. I bought all those fuggin' tapes. But I never sat in from trying to learn them..on purpose. I just let my brain absorb whatever inspired me..and put my own spin on stuff. This is true.

I never learned any of my hero's solo/songs note for note. I never play guitar in a cover band so that wasn't a problem. I think that's why it's easy for me to write stuff. Because everything I play is my own crap. Sure, it may sound kinda like this or that..but it doesn't. When I worshipped (still do) VH, Dokken, Ratt, Loudness, TNT, Rough Cutt..ect.. I sounded excatly like that style. I had a fuggin' mullet and shit. Fuck Yeah..Bill Z Cyrus.

Jeff Loomis broke me from that mold really. He was my other VH..the next level of being original. truly original.

I find few cover guitarist that write cool original stuff. I never wanted to be a cover guitarist. That is way too much work to sound like other guitarists. With Bass..anything goes..I don't care..that's really easy for me. Sometimes I just make up whatever bassline I think goes there..and it works beautiful..fuggums.

[Inazone]

The biggest change for me was when I started listening to death metal and black metal. While I was playing bass in various bands, all of the guitarists were into the "mainstream" metal bands of the day - Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Pantera, Guns n' Roses - and trying to mimic what the big-name guitarists were doing. When I decided I wanted to be a lead guitarist, I started in that same direction, but none of it was clicking for me. I think it was Testament's Low that really set me off on a new path, due to James Murphy's playing style. (To this day, it remains my favorite Testament album, and ruined all their previous stuff for me.)

The other "life changing" listen was Nile's Annihilation of the Wicked, and it probably had the greatest impact on my playing. I'd seen them live before and bought a couple of CDs over the years, but my band opened for them on that tour, and it was the first time I really paid close attention to Karl Sanders' style. Sure, it's death metal, so that lends itself toward a somewhat more chaotic approach, but what I immediately noticed was that he wasn't just repeating himself or letting the rhythm of the song dictate his solos. He might not start a solo until halfway through a measure, but it would then just flow across various key and tempo changes.

I've since picked up on the subtle points of soloing in other metal subgenres, and tried to incorporate that into my own playing without it being too derivative. So far, it's working.

[Hellbat]

When trying to lay down a solo over something, record yourself humming/singing a melody "solo" line, then figure out how to play it after the fact on your guitar. Throw in some tricks/flash over top of that melody and you will have a cool melodic solo that fits the song because then you are forced to not play by muscle memory and you are serving the song. It takes that rote repetition out of the solo composing process, and if other people can hum along to the solo it helps them to remember it as well.