Writing a guitar solo to chords?

Hello everyone, im currently working on covering this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMmyQ1lulA4

Im not really a lead guitarist, I love to play rhythm. Throughout the song, the chord progression mostly goes Em C Am D, and im trying to write a solo on my electric to accompany the acoustic during the little break in the beginning of the song, and im just having alot of trouble.

I know some music theory, but currently what im doing is just forming the chords on the electric, and picking notes individually over the acoustic, it sounds alright but it could be alot better.

I just wanted to see if anyone could help in regards to writing an electric solo over an acoustic track :]
thanks in advance !

It actually puts you in the key of E minor.  This is very important.  D isn't in E and neither is C.  Furthermore neither is Em.  It's E, D# and C# if you are talking E.  I'm sure that's what middleman meant.  You can normally tell what key you are in by looking at the first chord played.  Penatonic would work, plus it's easy.  Try a minor penatonic and see how it sounds.  I'm not making any guarentees, i've not tried this out to see how it sounds, i'm making an edjucated guess.  There are 2 types of penatonic scales, major penatonic and minor penatonic, maybe you already know this ****e.  

As far as what to play, listen to the song and ask yourself, "what would sound the best, stylewise and soundwise, overtop of this part?"  Is it a fast part with a lot of notes?  Is it a smooth slower part with less notes?  should i just mimic the melody?  Maybe you can play a counter melody.  Maybe try starting on the root not octave.  There are a lot of options, but the music will tell you what you are supposed to be playing over top of the break.  Plus you aren't going to get it instantly.  keep trying, and pay attention to the notes that sound really good (keep them!) and the ones that don't sound so good, get rid of 'em.

good luck

quentin.    

When in doubt, a pentatonic (blues) scale is always a good place to start. Clapton's made a career out of that scale. For some, it's all you need.

MiykPace


Hello everyone, im currently working on covering this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMmyQ1lulA4

Im not really a lead guitarist, I love to play rhythm. Throughout the song, the chord progression mostly goes Em C Am D, and im trying to write a solo on my electric to accompany the acoustic during the little break in the beginning of the song, and im just having alot of trouble.

I know some music theory, but currently what im doing is just forming the chords on the electric, and picking notes individually over the acoustic, it sounds alright but it could be alot better.

I just wanted to see if anyone could help in regards to writing an electric solo over an acoustic track :]
thanks in advance !

It's hard to describe in words but I would do dual notes (pick both at once) and just slide them up and down the neck and try to stay on the same notes as the vocal melody and in the same frequency range.  Nothing too fancy or rock/blues on that song.  Find 3 note pairs and then do them like 1 2 3 2 1 [slide] 2 and repeat back to 1 and start over.  Do this on beat.  Got it ?

I just started a new thread to encoruage a boig group of folks to add ther interpretaqtions of a solo to a common thread.

Check it out:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2000588

In addition to the Em Pentatonic you could also mix it up with an Am or Bm Pentatonic scale in the key of Em.  I play around with some different complimentary Pentatonic scales to the key and something usually pops melody-wise.