Using a warm up method to form a guitar solo…

June 3, 2009 at 9:18 pm (Music)

I thought I would give you guys a little insight on the solo I have been working on for “Falling Apart”, although it may end up being an intro riff to another song (I can’t seem to play it right in E minor, the key in which “Falling Apart” is played). To be honest, the whole idea of the solo came from a warm up riff I created to stretch my hands while playing. I printed a copy of the tab off (I used Power Tab V1.7 to write it, great program!), and scanned it in so I can show you an example. I also wrote a reference to which fingers should play which notes; in the reference, the pointer finger=1, the middle finger=2, the ring finger=3, and the pinky=4 (I figured some of the newer guitarists our there would find it useful). Here is the tab:

Warm Up Exercise:

-This warm up should sound like this.

Here is an advanced version of the same warm up; this is meant to show the versatility of this fingering structure down or up the fret board (keep in mind that the same fingering should be used no matter where this warm up is played).

Advanced Warm Up Exercise:

-This warm up should sound like this (half speed recording).

Using the notes in the 1st warm up, I came up with a little riff that I intend to use for a solo at some point. Here is what that looks like in tab form (again, same fingering structure).

Solo:

-This is how the solo should sound.

Pretty interesting stuff! By the way, I used my strat reproduction (Silvertone) to make these recordings while my Epiphone Les Paul gets a tune up. As always, thanks for the read!

NOTE: I see that my images are cut off (damn you WordPress!), but you can still view them by right clicking, then clicking “view image.” Sorry for the inconvenience!