Guitar solo
- For the Fred Frith album, see Guitar Solos (album).
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Guitar solos are a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, rock and metal, jazz styles such as swing and jazz fusion.
Guitar solos are also used in classical music forms such as chamber music and concertos. Guitar solos may be unaccompanied works for a single guitar. As well, they may be accompanied by other instruments, ranging from a small ensemble such as a jazz quartet or a rock band, to a large ensemble such as an orchestra or big band.
Unaccompanied guitar music is found in folk and classical music dating as far back as the instrument has existed, and the use of a guitar as a solo voice within an ensemble dates back at least to the Baroque concerto.
Guitar solos in rock music
Today the term guitar solo is commonly taken to refer specifically to the rock music genre. Although solo passages for guitar are found in many musical genres, the 'guitar solo' has become characteristic part of rock music. Guitar solos are usually performed with electric guitar with the timbral effect known as distortion. Rock bands sometimes have two guitarists, designated 'lead' and 'rhythm', the 'lead' player taking the solos while the 'rhythm' player accompanies. Lonnie Johnson was one of the first, if not the first, musicians (in modern music especially) to play single string guitar solos.
Most examples of rock music are based around songs in very traditional forms. The main formal features are therefore verses, choruses, and bridges. The guitar solo is usually the most significant instrumental (that is, non-vocal) section of a mainstream rock song. In other rock-related genres such as pop and dance music, the keyboard synthesizer usually plays this melodic role.
This use of an instrumental interlude to a song is influenced by blues musicians like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, who were influential in the development of rhythm and blues (e.g., Bo Diddley), rock and roll (e.g. Chuck Berry) and hence more modern forms of rock music. In most cases, the rock guitar solo is a short instrumental section of the song. In the classic verse-chorus form it quite often falls between the second chorus and third verse. As well, extended guitar solos are sometimes used at the end of songs, such as Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" , Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven".
The use of the guitar solo in heavy metal music was especially notable during the 1980s, where guitar solos were common, and a lead guitarist of a band might be as well-known as the singer. During this time the use of techniques such as harmonics became more widely used. Later, guitarists who had developed considerable technical facility began to release albums which consisted only of guitar compositions.
Guitar solos in popular music went out of fashion towards the end of the 1990s, and since then the guitar solo in pop and popular rock music declined in popularity. Guitar solos remain important in rock, heavy metal, blues, and jazz music.
Bass guitar solos
While bass guitar solos are not common in popular music, some bands also include bass solos in some songs, particularly heavy metal, funk, and progressive rock bands. Some genres use bass guitar solos in most songs, such as jazz bands or jazz fusion groups.
In a rock context, bass guitar solos are structured and performed in a similar fashion as a rock guitar solo, often with the musical accompaniment from the verse or chorus sections. While bass guitar solos appear on few studio albums from rock or pop bands, genres such as progressive rock, fusion-influenced rock, and some types of heavy metal are more likely to include bass solos, both in studio albums and in live performances.
Bass solos are performed using a range of different techniques. Bass solos are often performed by using plucking or fingerpicking. In the 1960s, The Who's bassist, John Entwistle, performed a bass break on the song "My Generation" using a pick. Bass players such as Cliff Burton(Metallica), Geezer Butler(Black Sabbath), Alex Webster(Cannibal Corpse) from heavy metal often perform bass solos, generally performed using a pick (though there are exceptions, most notably Cliff Burton, who shunned the use of a pick). Jazz fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius (Weather Report) used chime-like harmonics and rapid plucking techniques in his bass solos.
In the 1970s, funk bassists such as Larry Graham began using slapping and popping techniques for their bass solos, which coupled a percussive thumb-slapping technique of the lower strings with an aggressive finger-snap of the higher strings, often in rhythmic alternation. The slap and pop technique incorporates a large number of muted (or 'ghost' tones) to normal notes to add to the rhythmic effect. Slapping and popping solos were prominent in the 1980s and they are still used by more recent bands.
When playing bass solos, hard rock and heavy metal bassists sometimes use bass effects such as distortion or Wah-wah pedals to produce a more pronounced sound. Due to the lower range of the bass, bass guitar solos usually have a much lighter accompaniment than solos for other instruments; in some cases, the bass guitar solo is unaccompanied, or it is accompanied only by the drums.
See also
- Solo (music)
- Air guitar - a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar solos
- Riff
External links
References
Goetz, Philip, ed. (1990), Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 5 (Fifteenth Edition ed.), Chicago, p. 982, ISBN 0-85229-511-1 {{citation}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Text "author2-link" ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).