I get more enjoyment out of figuring out what scale a solo is in and paying the main parts of the solo with my owm improvization mixed in.

I'm asking the guitar players here which they prefer to hear and which way they prefer to perfom solo's?

bassmaniac said:

I play in an all-covers band, playing lead on roughly half of the set.


It all depends on the song as to whether I'll try and stick to the original solo or improvise, but for the most part I will improvise.

Trying to copy someone else's lead lines and still inject into them the same feel that they originally had is SO hard, but to improvise your own thing and still keep that vibe is much more effective.


One or two songs we do are ones where you just HAVE to keep the original solo (or as best as I can play it!) e.g. Enter Sandman (if I play anything else, the band just loses its place, for some reason) and Sweet Child O Mine - cos, I mean, that is such a perfect solo, the song would be naked without it.



I also find that, rather than go away and invent my own solos and learn them and stick to them, I prefer to just improvise. Again, there are exceptions, but sometimes it's more fun to have something new each time.

I agree with Dave.

I was trying to think of any covers that I've done where I ever bothered to learn the solos. The only one was "You Shook Me All Night Long" - but that solo is so structured that any deviation from it really seems to take away from the song... almost like making up new words to the tune.

Yes. Cheese. That's right. AC/DC. Hey, it gets the bras flying. I wont lie.

I'm too lazy to learn the solos!

It's much more fun to really improvise and see what happens.

Thanks for the responses. My experince so far has been the same. I ususally learn a few liones form the solo and improvise the rest.

People like it when you do the solos. If something happens and they extend it then you can go off into "la la" land.

Check out some Shawn Lane live stuff and you'll see what I mean.