Solo pd 7

Crazy Train
This week I will focus on learning the guitar solo from crazy train and more specifically the fast legato run at the end of the song. This part is played very fast and is a key part of the solo that is very recognisable.
The tab for this part is
 e|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

B|-~~~~~~-------------------------------------------------14h16h17-|
G|-----------------------------------------------13h14h16----------|
D|----------------------------11h13h14-13h14h16--------------------|
A|------------------11h12h14---------------------------------------|
E|---------11h12h14------------------------------------------------|

e|--14-------19bu(21)--19bu(21)bd(19)~~~~~~--x-(pickscrape)--------|
B|-----17s19---------------------------------x-(pickscrape)--------|
G|-------------------------------------------x-(pickscrape)--------|
D|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

I will practise this part by playing each individual triplet pattern on the individual strings seperstly so that I can build up speed using hammer ons. Once I have learn each triplet pattern I will put them all together and practise them slowly together and use a metronome to build up speed. The run ends on a bluesy lick using notes from the f sharp minor blues scale. I will again practise this part slowly build up speed with a metronome. Once I have all the parts learnt I will put them all together and practise this constantly. I will give myself a week to learn this part as it is rather challenging but a week should be enough time to nail thus part.

Solo pd 6

Crazy Train
To start of learning Crazy train I will focus on learning the main riff. The song is in the key of f sharp minor and the riff uses notes from the sharp minor scale.
The tab for the riff is

|------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------| repeat 2 times
|------------------------------------|
|------4---5----4--2--------2--------|
|-2--2---2---2-------5-4-5----5-4--0-|

|------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------|
|------4---5----4--5-5-5-7-7-7-------|
|-2--2---2---2-----------------------|

The riff requires large hand and finger stretches to be able to play across all f the frets. To practise the riff I will break it down into different sections and start slowly building u speed with a metronome until I can play the song at full tempo. I will give myself a week to learn this as this will be enough time to learn the riff and play it smoothly.

Solo pd5

Tears in Heaven
I have started to learn the lead guitar embellishments for Tears in Heaven that are heard in the original recording. These include two bluesey acoustic guitar licks that use double stops. 
Here is the tab for this two phrases. I will start slowly and learn these and build up speed using a metronome. I will allow myself one week to learn these two patterns as they should take to long to learn as I am used to playing bluesy acoustic licks.

Solo pd4

Tears in Heaven
For tears in heaven I will start by learning the acoustic intro. This part of the song features hammer ons and pull offs and is played by finger picking the strings instead of using a plectrum.
Below is the tab for this:

A              E/G#      
e|-----------------------|-----------------------------|
B|-----------------------|--------2h3p2----5-----5--2--|
G|-----------------------|-----2--------2--4-----4--2--|
D|-----------------------|-----------------------------|
A|-----------------------|--0--------------------------|
E|-------------------0h2-|-----------------4--4-----2--|

    F#m        A/E         D/F#           E7    
e|-------------------------|-------------------------|
B|-------2-----2-----2-----|--3-----3-----3-----3----|
G|-------2-----2-----2-----|--2-----2-----2-----1----|
D|-------------------------|-------------------------|
A|-------------------------|-------------------------|
E|----2-----2--0--0-----0--|--2--2-----2--0--0--0----|

    A                           A             E/G#  F#m 
e|---------------------------|---------------------------|
B|--2-----2-----2-----2------|--------2h3p2----5------2--|
G|--2-----2-----2-----2------|-----2--------2--4------2--|
D|---------------------------|---------------------------|
A|--0--0-----0--0--0--0------|--0------------------------|
E|-----------------------0h2-|-----------------4------2--|

The main focus i need to work in is the part highlighted in red.

The part features a hammer on pull of part that requires the second fret to be barred on the b and g string with your first finger and the pull of is done with your second finger. I will practise by building up strength and starting slowly until i can play it up to speed with the original song. I will give my self one week to learn this as this will be enough time to practise it.

Solo pd 3

The final part I need to work on for Dazed and Confused is the solo that requires the guitar to played with a violin bow. This is something I have never done before so this is new to me. I have started practising by just playing with the bow on the low e string. To make the sound smooth I have to use a lot of rosin on the bow so that the bow slides across the strings well. I will listen to live version of Dazed and Confused and learn what Jimmy Page is playing by ear. I will keep practising this till I achieve the sound I am happy with. I will set myself the challenge of learning the bow solo in a week and I will practise very hard to perfect the technique pf playing with a bow.

Solo pd2

Dazed and Confused Post

The task I have set myself is to perfect one of the riffs from nightrain. The riff uses a number of bends and chromatic passing notes played across the low e and a string. The tab for this is:

e|------------------------|------------------------|
B|------------------------|------------------------|
G|------------------------|------------------------|
D|------------------------|------------------------|
A|-------10--9--8br--7----|---5--4--3br--2---------| 

E|0-0-0-------------------|0-----------------------|
 I will learn this part by practising it over and over again and use tabs to work out what to play. Once this part is learned properly it will make the transition from the first to the second verse sound a lot cleaner. This should take me around two days to learn as it is a riff needs to have the righ articulation to sound clean. Two days will be the right amount of time to perfect this riff.

Solo pd1

Dazed and Confused Solo Post

Final Part

The final part that I need to learn for the guitar solo is the very fast bluesy licks that are played as the song fades out. .The licks all use notes from the e minor pentatonic scale in the 1st position with some major notes added to flare the solo up. The licks also move up the fret board to the 2nd position starting on the 15^th fret of the low e string. The licks involve lots of fast bends mainly on the 15^th and 20^th frets of the b string with lots of hammer ons and pull offs to build speed around the licks using the notes from the pentatonic scale. I will use tabs to learn the lyrics and use a metronome to help me increase my playing speed. 

This part is important to the song as it is a very recognizable part of the song due to the speed it is played out.

This should take me around a few days to learn just to build up the speed and be able to play at the original speed.

11th May

Thurs 11th May – Today was our performance!I am very happy with how our performance went. We all played great and everyones improvised sections came together really well. The crowd seemed to enjoy our performances and we received great feedback from the audience after the show.

9th May

9th May – In todays lesson we rehearsed all of the pieces intensively, with vocals for the reggae piece, in preparation for performance. We have all of the songs dialled in now and it is just a matter of performing them next week. We can all play the songs fluently now and all of our handwork has payed off. All of us will practise all of the pieces in our own time leading up to our performance.

2nd May

2nd May – In todays lesson we finalised the structure for our own  improvised song that we have named ‘Jam On Toast’. We came up with an ending that will come after the c section. The c section brings everything together and also builds tension up the final chord and makes the ending very impactful. I came up with a chord progression that went f#,e,b,a,g# then it repeated its self so it was played four times overall. We then played the riff in double time but changed the last two chords, the a became a C#minor and the G# became an E. The drums here picked up and played a heavy beat using the crash cymbal to increase the dynamic of the song. I also came up with a part to link parts c to chorus. O the last bar of the c section I played a chromatic run passage starting on a followed by G#,G then F# playing 8th note triplets. A big final chord was struck at the end with a drum accent and all of us making lots of 'noise' and concluding the piece the same chord again played staccato to draw the piece together.

We then rehearsed all of the pieces over again and they all sounded good and are all ready to perform.
I am going to practise all of the pieces in my own time over the next week so that I am 100% confident with all of my parts.

25th April

25th April – In todays lesson we listened to the recording from last week and continued jamming over our improvised song that we have yet to have names. After practising our A and B sections we established the C section. The C section was a riff that I came up with that is based around an f# bluesy pattern. The tab for the riff is:

D-------------7-----9------7-------------
A--9---9---------------------------9------7

We experimented with how many times we should play this riff and we decided we should play it 8 times. We then realised that this became a little repetitive so for the 5th and 6th time around we moved it up a tone the back down for the 7th and 8th time. Whilst i was playing this riff dom was improving over the top of it using the f# and then the g# pentatonic scales over the top of it.
After this everyone continued trying to add appropriate parts each time we played it


To conclude the lesson we jammed the reggae piece with the vocalists for the first tim. This made a big difference as it filled out the piece and made it fill complete and resemble the original more. The singers had to adapt to leaving the space for the improvised sections but once this was worked out the piece was perfected and it is now ready to be performed.

18th April

18th April – In todays lesson we practiced the Reggae piece and jammed Green Onions. We found this to better than our previous 12 bar, as it had clearer riff/melodies to work from rather than simply just playing 12 bar blues chords.
We had all practised green onions over the holidays so we had a clear idea of what to improvise over when we cam back. We played over the main pattern each taking turns to solo over the 12 bar blues riff which is in the key of F. To solo over this, due to it being a very traditional blues, i felt the best way to solo over this would be to use the f blues scale. This fitted perfectly over this and with my practise of blues rock licks in this scale I was able to solo over the progression straight away with ease and at times I even reference the original guitar solo in the song to pay homage to the original.

In the second hour we listened back to the recording of our original jam on Sam’s bass line. We continued jamming and established the main themes that would become the A and B sections. A being sams bass line section and B a section based around around a 2 chord progression using arpeggios of an 4 major seven chord and an e major seven chord. We recorded this to keep it fresh in our minds and so we could listen back to it in our next lesson.

My target for next week is to keep practising green onions and to experiment with ideas that work over both the A and B section of our improvised jam song. I will give myself a week to practise and I will practise by experimenting with looping ideas over the chords and layering guitar parts until I faint some interesting parts and potentially even finding parts for more sections of the jammed song.

28th March

28th March – In todays lesson we jammed our reggae and blues improvisation pieces. We decided to use Green Onions next term, instead of our own 12 bar blues as we felt it was a more enjoyable piece and it made use of more types of key sounds such as organ which made it more interesting for the keyboard players in our class. Since we have the structure of the raggae piece down now it is just a matter of keep practising the oleic until our performance. In the second hour we jammed another brand new idea based on a riff Sam had came up with. Everybody tried to come up with their own parts that fitted over the riff I found that over this riff volume swells using thee minor pentatonic scale fitted well over this as well as adding major 2nd and 6th notes from the e scale into this. We recorded this so that we would not forget it and so that we could listen to it again when we came back after half term,.
Our group target for this week is to learn Green Onions over easter, so that when we come back after the holiday we can play the song straight away. Also we have the target of practising everything we have learnt so far for our improvised section so that we can stay fresh with it and keep improving on it.

21st March

21st March – In todays lesson we listened to last week’s recording of could you be loved that we had done, and then jammed the reggae piece again with the finalised structure. As we had all gone away and practised our improvised parts individually when we came back into the room  to practise we all had a better idea of what we were going to do for our individual improvised section.
The pattern I had came up with I will base my improvised section is a riff and phrase focused around the B minor pentatonic scale using octaves and doubles stops to create a bluesy but still raggae feel for my phrase. The tab for what I was playing is this and for the rest of the bar after I played this pattern I would add double stops across the 7 and 9 th frets on the g and b strings and different bends on the 7 and 9th fret of the g string.

E---------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------
G---------------7 (1/4bend)----------
D------9------------------------9-------
A----------------------------------------
E--7------7------------------------------

In the second lesson we attempted a brief jam on brand new original material that I came up with. I had wrote a riff and we all played round it for a while adding more and more texture to the riff and building up instrument parts through experimentation. The riff was based around an e 5 chord and an a chord consisting of just an a note and a minor third. the riff was fairly slow and had lots of 'breathing space' allowing for other ideas to be layered on top of it and it also had a lot of tension to it which allowed made it feel like it could be built up into something else given we had time to keep playing it for hours.

My target for next week is to just keep practising I need to for the improvised sections and going over all of the scales. I will do this by playing over my recorded loops of the solo sections and experimenting with new ideas. I will give myself a week to do this as it gives me enough time to nail everything for next weeks lesson.

14th March

14th March – In todays lesson we jammed the reggae song again including adding solos over the verses. We established a proper structure and decided where improvisation should be, and over which sections of the song. We decided that the verses and pre chorus were the most suitable parts to improv over as they allowed us to use a number of different scales such as the harmonic minor scale and minor pentatonic scale in b over the chords. We didn't improvise over the chorus as we thought that this part was best left out and left as the original with just singing the chorus.
The structure we decided on is as followed:
Intro
chorus (no vocals)
verse
pre chorus
chorus
verse
pre chorus
chorus
Improvisation over B minor chord
intro riff harmonised
Improvisation over verse
Improvisation over verse again
Improvisation over pre chorus
Chorus (no vocals)
Drum and Bass guitar improvised section
Chorus.

As a passing section between the Improvisation over B minor chord into the improvisation over verse we decided to play the intro riff but add a second guitar harmony part that I played. The tab for this riff was 0-0-0-2-4-2-0-0-0-2-4-2-4-4-4-6-7-6-4-4-4-6-7-6- played all on the d string with ghost notes in-between each note and played very staccato.

My target for myself to achieve was keep practising soloing over my allocated improvisation slot which is over the B minor section. I will experiment with different phrases and scales until i find something I am happy with. I will practise by recording a loop of the B minor section and keep going over this. I will give myself one week to achieve this as that allows me enough time to practise until my next lesson.

7th March

7th March – Today in our music lesson we started putting together the reggae track together as a group. We had all been away for a week practising all of our parts individually  so we all knew the structure of the song and what we was all meant to be playing. We played over the song about 3 times to get the song down, this was without any improvised sections yet. We decided that the best way to get used to soloing over the song would be to solo over the verse chords as it has a simple two chord pattern that seemed like the best part to solo over so we jammed solos over verses. We started by using the B minor pentatonic scale as it fitted well over the b minor and e minor chords of the verse. We took it in turns practise over the chords. We each set ourselves the task of going home and practising improvising over the chords by playing along with the original recording. We will have a week to do this and in our next lesson we will recap by playing over the song and adding in the improvised sections.

28th Feb

28th Feb – In todays music lesson  we started our next improvisation section which was improvisng over a piece of reggae music and chose Bob Marley's "learned Could You Be Loved."
We went away individually for the lesson and we began to learn our individual parts to practice for next week. My part was was the rhythm guitar parts that consisted of a lot of chordal playing. However what made this interesting is that in this style go music when a chord is being played it is often a barre chord, however only the top 4 strings are played and the chords are played very staccato. Also the chords are played on the off beat which took some time getting used too.This was a complete new style for me to learn. At first it was a challenge as I had to make sure I was playing the chords very sharply and getting the timing right took lots of practise as I was often tempting to play on the back beat but I had to make sure I was always on the off beat. The chord progression for the verse is simply B minor for two bars and then E minor for two bars. The pre chorus is G, F#m, Em,Em,G,F#m, then A, leading onto the chorus: D, Bm, G, then D.

I have set myself the target of practising my strumming attack over the next week so that I can achieve a very staccato sound when playing the chords of the song. I was practise this my by experimenting with the way I release the strings after I have strummed them and also by seeing if up or down strokes work better than one another.

21st Feb

21st Feb – In todays  lesson we had a quick scales recap/warm up since we had been on half term holiday for 2 weeks. Over the half term I had been practising learning the A dorian mode across the neck of the guitar in many positions and this was very helpful as it allowed me to play different licks in higher or lower pitch and do different runs across the fretboard. We then jammed blues together, trying to use all scales. Overall this was a fairly relaxed lesson we we just aimed on getting our improvisation skills over the 12 bar blues as high as we could achieve. My target is just to keep on practising this as much as I can at home to improve my whole playing and improvisational skills in general.

7th Feb

7th Feb – In todays lesson we introduced the Dorian mode into our set of scales we have been using to solo with. We went away and individually practiced this as this was something new to most of us. The A dorian mode uses the notes a,b,c,d,e,f# and g. This meant we now had more notes to use and add into our musical vocabulary for when soloing over the 12 bar blues. After we had privatised this individually the lesson was followed by group session. We tried to mix up dorian mode and pentatonic scales notes into our solos to give our solos different voicings. Using these notes I could add major seconds into my playing which gave an interesting sound and allowed me to come up with melodic sounding phrases.
My target for next week is have learned the dorian mode in different positions across the guitar neck so allow me to play all over the next of the guitar and not just around one position and area of frets. I will practise by using different scale charts online to help me with learning the different shapes and once I have learnt these I will make different phrases out of the different shapes. I will allow myself one week to complete this challenge.

31st Jan

31st Jan –Today in our music lesson we recapped and practiced the A pentatonic scales.We separated into groups (pianos together, guitars together). This was helpful as it allowed me and and Sam, a fellow guitarist in the class, to jam with each other overs the chords and to show each other the licks we had been practising over the past week. Also, as I previously documented I listened to other blues/rock guitarists to learn more licks. I found inspiration in Jimmy Page and Dave Gilmour. What inspired me about there playing was the ability to go from a fast bluesy style of playing using the pentatonic to coming up with beautiful melodies by slowing things down and added in major notes. I pout this into practise into my improvisational work through experimenting wit note choice whilst playing over the 12 bar blues chords.After our group practise work we came together at end of session to jam 12 bar blues again, with solos. This was fun as we could all hear how much we had all improved.
My target for next weeks lesson is just to keep practising different blues licks and phrasing. I will do this by keep on listening to a variety of blues guitarists and playing over different 12 bar blues backing tracks.

24th Jan

24th Jan – Today in music we used a chord chart to learn a 12 bar blues in A. The chords for a 12 bar blues are the 1st, 4th and 5th degree chords of the major scale. These are called primary chords. These chords are A, D and E. At first we played around this progression together without solos so that we could all get familiar with the chord pattern. We then tried jamming over it, taking turns using the major and minor pentatonic scales to improvise (12 bars each). I focused on using lots of different licks from the a minor pentatonic scale including different receptive patterns and runs across all six strings.

Here is an example of a run I practised over the chords as it makes use of the notes of the A minor pentatonic scale  and has a very bluesy sound to it. I also added in the flat 5th interval, d# (the blues note) when playing different licks over the chords. I set myself the challenge of learning as many different blues phrases and licks as I could over the next week so when we practised the 12 bar blues next week I would have a lot more different patterns to use and blend together with over patterns from the A major scale. I will do this by listening to lots of different blues guitarists and learning what they do and learn the licks they often use through out a 12 bar blues.

17th Jan

17th Jan – Today in our music lesson we jammed purple rain again for first hour. We recapped on what we had done the week before and we done this by running through the purple rain chords and each taking a turn at soloing over the chords using the first 5 notes of the A major scale.  Each of us had practised at home so when we came back into lesson this week we had a strong idea of what we wanted to play over the chords today. My weeks worth of practise had helped as I had came up with different patterns to play over the chord. An example of this was repeating this pattern on the g string : 2nd fret, 4th and then 5th, Repeating this pattern using hammer ons and pull offs allowed me to create a smooth legato sounding phrase that was melodically pleasing.

We then practised the A major and minor pentatonic scales over the chords which allowed us to add more notes that we could use to improvise with. This was good as it gave us more of a variety of melodies we could come up with. I used many common blues licks over this chord progression as the notes kitten well. An example of this was being the 7th fret on the g string up a tone then hitting the double stop of the 5th fret b and e strings then repeating this pattern over and over to achieve a fast
sounding pattern over the chords.
-e--------------7
b---------------7
g----5(b) -----------

Being a guitarist I already know the major and minor and pentatonic scale so I focus on playing this scales together over the chords and also playing the A major scale but with notes from the minor pentatonic Scale added such as adding in minor thirds and minor sevenths.  The other musicians then went away and individual practice on these scales was done for rest of 2nd hour of the lesson. Using the same idea as from last weeks lesson i set my self the challenge of creating melodic phrases that fit well over the chords using notes from the a major and a minor pentatonic scale. My plan is to come up with some melodic sounding phrases that utilise both scales and I won't to use a less is more approach to make up very musical and pleasing patterns. I will give myself a week to do this and I will practise this by playing over a loop of the chords.

10th Jan

10th Jan – Today in our music performance we spoke about the concept of improvising and what it means. We decided to chose our song with 4 simple chords that would be a good basis for improvising over. The song chosen was 'Purple Rain' by the late great Price. We learnt the descending 4 chord pattern from ‘Purple Rain’. The chord progression is A sus2, Asus2/F#, E and D. We were only allowed to use 5 notes to improvise with. This decision was made as some members of the class had little improvisation experience. We felt limiting ourself to only 5 notes would be a good introduction to improving and trying to come up with different melodic phrases with a limited amount of notes. The 5 notes were in the key of A major, they were A, B, C#, D and E. (first 5 notes of the A Major scale.)
I experimented with the note choices and different phrasing to come up with different melodic ideas that fitted well over the chords. I found that sliding and bending into to the notes also gave my improvised ideas a different feel.
I set myself the goal of practising for the next week at home using the 5 notes to come up with different melodic phrases. I will do this by recording a loop of the chord progression and improvise over the chords.  One week will give me enough time to come up with some phrases to use in my next lesson.