M2M Day 126: My first guitar solo
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For March, my goal is to play a 5-minute blues guitar solo.
It’s been almost one week since I started this month’s challenge. In that time, I’ve practiced “expressive techniques” (like vibrato, bends, and fall-offs), become more familiar with the pentatonic scale, and extracted some inspiration from my favorite artists.
Today, I felt ready to put these pieces together and record my first attempt at a blues guitar solo. Here it is…
While I was playing, the solo didn’t feel that great, but listening back, it definitely resembles the genre. In fact, there are a few moments (like at :20, for example) that I quite like. I’m definitely making solid progress.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot more I hope I can accomplish with a guitar solo: 1) Express emotion, 2) Tell a story, 3) Create melodic growth and interest, etc. Right now, the solo feels very deliberate and effortful — coming from the brain, and not the heart.
Still, this is a good start and a strong foundation to build on.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.