I have been playing a while....I can play well....I think:hmm:

But I have NO idea how to put a solo together...NO IDEA....I am useless at it.....But I really wanna be good at it....or at least be able to do it.

So please anyhelp would be GREATLY appeciated...the question is HOW???? :help::help::help: Please!!!![/I]

I think soloing is the process of dicking around at home, coming up with cool riffs that don't fit into a song, then string them together by neato transitions and practice it till you have it by memory.

Brush up on some musical theory also, it can help you through rough spots.

Take this with a grain of salt, cause I have always been content playing my part and leaving the solos to others (back when I played jazz trombone): I think a good place to start is with the melody, and then add some runs and passing and neighboring tones and modify it to fancy it up...

+1 to both posts before me. Messing around with the main melody would be good start for a solo, and just play it over and over, maybe changing or adding some things, until it sounds like something else. And messing around at home and coming up with riffs that wouldn't really fit anywhere would also be helpful.

But first try a bar of the main melody, or something that you'll repeat, and then a bar of random stuff.

I think soloing is the process of dicking around at home, coming up with cool riffs that don't fit into a song, then string them together by neato transitions and practice it till you have it by memory.

Brush up on some musical theory also, it can help you through rough spots.

i could not have set that better

Thanks for the help people...that´s really helpful,

Just to ask what sort of theory should I brush up on????....and how do I apply that to soloing....I am not too clued up on theory so keep it simple...ha ha ha:D:D:D

Scales???

Thanks again....its great to be able to ask stuff like this:hyper:

well when ever i decide to step out on a limb and take a solo in the jazz band i usually stay within the blues scale of whatever key we are playing in, i occasionally branch into another scale maybe a fifth in the key just to see what it sounds like but i don't do that often because of a bad mess up doing that but hey its jazz, the best thing would be to stay within a scale, at least in jazz that is.
theory wise, knowing your scales and knowing how to construct a chord would probably be the best thing to know.

good luck!

...But I have NO idea how to put a solo together...NO IDEA..

Heh, I know the feeling. Then, I go to my teacher an he pulls them out of a hat. He makes it look effortless.

Let me tell you an exercise we did that seemed to help. Pick up one of these bass chord charts (http://www.walrusproductions.com/basschordsmini.html), pick a chord and just start playing around with various combinations of notes within the chord. Also, work on mixing up the timing and/or doubling up on notes. You'll be putting riffs together before you know it.

The best guitar solo *ever* was Jimi Hendrix quoting "Strangers in the Night" at.. was it Monteray Pop?

Bass solos are tough because you've been playing a fundamentally supportive role until that point, and very often the rest of the band has disappeared for your solo.

Joke: A couple was exploring the wild, untamed African countryside. As soon as they got off the boat they heard distant drumming. Terror was struck into the hearts of the couple, but they forged on. They asked their guide, "What's with the drumming?" Their guide just said "Drums good." A bit relieved, they continued. The drumming never stopped. All day, all night they heard distant drumming. Again they asked their guide "What is the meaning of the drumming?" and again the guide just said "Drums good." Finally, on the third day, unable to stand it any longer they insisted that their guide tell them "What's so good about the drumming?" The tour guide looked at them and said "Drums stop, bass solo start."

The #1 piece of advice I have for bass solos is DON'T LOSE THE GROOVE! In fact, not only should you NOT LOSE THE GROOVE, but you should GROOVE HARDER THAN YOU HAVE FOR THE REST OF THE SET. The bass solo is YOUR CHANCE TO PROVE TO THE AUDIENCE THAT THE REST OF THE BAND IS HOLDING YOU BACK AND IT'S THANKS TO YOU THAT THOSE TWO-LEFT-FEET HAVING WANKERS CALLED GUITARISTS AND SINGERS SOUND GOOD AT ALL AND THAT THEY WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT THE GROOVING BASS PLAYER WHO GETS ALL THE CHICKS.

Study James Brown & some Latin rhythms and whip them out only during your solo.

You need to become "musically conversational" with your axe, really learn your way around the fingerboard and be very comfortable with playing within chord structures. As someone said above, learning to play the melody of a song is a nice way to break out of the typical bass player role.

Some knowledge of theory and harmonies is almost a 100% requirement (although there are some players that have great soloing abilities and know nothing about theory). Listen to how other instruments construct their solo's, too .... many a great bass solo has been clipped from some other instrumentalists work.

We all become so buried in the time keeping, groove pounding role that soloing seems to be a completely foreign language to many of us. Try working on playing simple melodies first, after a while it will become much easier .... :cool:

Be comfortable with your scales and chord tones.

Willie Weeks's solo on Voices Inside (from Donny Hathaway Live) is referenced all the time as one of the greatest bass solos ever.

People around the world associate you with your break in “Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything).” What’s it like to be known for one solo?
[Laughs.] It’s incredible. Everywhere I go somebody knows my name. It’s not like with Michael Jackson—I don’t get mobbed—but I am famous, and I like it. It’s as incredible as that night Donny said, “On bass, ladies and gentlemen, the baddest bass player in the country—Willie Weeks, y’all!” I’m like, Oh, my God! What did he say? What am I going to do? I thought, I’d better build slow!

Was that solo edited for the album?
The only thing they did was make it shorter. There were other nights that the solo was sort of choppy—it didn’t really tell a story. The solo on the record was very, very simple, but it had a story. It was a little song.

Bolded what's important. You probably will only have a few bars to rock out, but you should tell a story. The solo should feel like it goes somewhere.

ha ha ha ...... Nice story MarkTAW.....I laughed...and I loved the last part of what you wrote.....I WANNA PROVE THAT!!!!....gotta solo!!!!

Heh. I call it as I see it.

Sing a melody that sounds good to you, and play it out on bass. How you translate that from your head to the bass is another matter.

I would just go with a cool groove- add a few flourishes here and there- again I think feel and simplicity is better than trying to fit as many notes into an 8 bar break

cheers

Bob

+1 on the story thing.

I suck at soloing, I hate listening to myself, mostly because I just ignore every scale and just try to play something "spontanious". I like to think that one could split the solo in two; the "question", and the "answer". This way you can sort of communicate with yourself in your solo, making it slightly easier to develope a little "song" as you guys put it. That's my idea atleast, how I think about it. How I play it is usually very different from this idea. Unfortunatly.

the way i learned to solo was super slow- i never read any theory while i played the DB in my jazz bands, but i could walk a line just fine. basically my solos started out as slightly modified walking lines, until i was able to keep the chords going in my head but make up more interesting melodic lines. for a long time i just played rhythms other than quarter notes over the changes and called it a solo. it worked OK, but once i finally read some books on theory, i got wayyyy better at it. theory is clutch.

To me, the best sounding bass solos are the ones that are just the rhythm fancied up a bit. Take your bass line and doctor it up, but don't lose the pocket. Apply some theory behind it.

How is a bass solo like a sneeze?

You know it's coming, but nothing you can do will stop it.

Learn the circle of fifths!! This will help you with your solos and it will help you come up with more personalized bass lines during melodies by teaching you the relashonship between notes and chords. It's amazing what happens to a song when you start complementing the rhythm guitar instead of just playing along.

This site helped (hell, still is) me learn alot. The best one I could find. It's done by a piano teacher but it's the same for all music. http://www.circle-of-fifths.net/

Whenever I have a solo, I normally base it off the scale I'm playing in. For example, if my bassline is in the blues scale, my solo will be in that scale. This also probably depends on what type of music you play. When I take solos, it is usually on my band's jazz songs.

Learn the circle of fifths!! This will help you with your solos and it will help you come up with more personalized bass lines during melodies by teaching you the relashonship between notes and chords. It's amazing what happens to a song when you start complementing the rhythm guitar instead of just playing along.

This site helped (hell, still is) me learn alot. The best one I could find. It's done by a piano teacher but it's the same for all music. http://www.circle-of-fifths.net/

The circle of fifths is all well & good, but I don't see that it has THAT much to do with what he wants to learn.

If you want to learn to solo, analyze great solos & great pieces of music.

Dudes.....Thanks a lot...that has given me A LOT to be working on....man I need to sit down right now and practice!!!

Can people recommend and good solos that I could listen too????

thanks again

I dunno what type of music you listen to...

Flea has a few...Coffee Shop, Naked in the Rain...

The Live version I have of the Allman bros In Memory of Elizabeth Reed has a cool bass solo thats a good 45 seconds long.

Lol...those are the only three bass solos I can think of off the top of my head.

You could also always just listen to the bass greats, Jaco, Victor Wooten (Bela Fleck and The Flecktones). They have a lot of solo pieces and crazy lines/solos, but its hard to emulate them cause they are so sick.

Willie Weeks on "Voices Inside" off his Live disc. The solo is a few mins long and is a good example of progressing from a simple groove to more high energy high register stuff.

Also, check out cool guitar, piano or horn solos that catch your ear. They solo all day long, so you can probably cop some of their ideas, add a rhythmic feel to them and call it a day. :)

A simple trick that is used in jazz a lot is to sneak in part of another melody.

It's easy to do and doesn't really require much skill. You just need to plan ahead a bit unless you have done it a lot. The song you you are putting in doesn't need to be anything fancy or sophisticated. In fact the simpler and more recognizable the tune is, the better. Happy Birthday (especially if appropriate) La Cucaracha, any children's song, it doesn't matter and it gives the impression that you are clever and usually gets a smile or a laugh from anyone who picks up on it. If you have a holiday gig that has songs associated with it, Christmas, St patricks, etc, see if any of the tunes have a few bars that would fit in your solo space, guaranteed crowd pleaser. Of course you need to pay attention to key and to chord changes as they affect your solo, but very often you can find ways to make this work.

Another trick, not as hard as it appears, is to sing along with your solo George Benson/ Slam Stewart style. The solo need not be real fancy, your singing along with it is going to make it entertaining. With a little practice you may find you can do this with very little effort or planning, and it goes over very well.

Doctoring the bass line is quite good as was pointed out earlier. It gives you an opportunity to shine while still keeping the pocket and groove.

Another approach is like to take is the silent one. In my mind, one of the greatest guitar solo of all time is Alex Lifeson's "Limelight": it is simply a masterpiece and it is probably in the top 10 of most simple and easy to execute solo from Mr Lifeson. Why ? Because it uses silence (or rather wholenotes) to its advantage.

On bass, it is rare that a flurry of note sounds good or can be sang later on by the audience (a hallmark of a great solo, IMHO). This means that short burst of notes, syncopation and rythmn play are your friend. Make use of the groove, simplify it, complexify it, play around it. Many of the solos Ive taken in jazz are dead simple from an ahrmony perspective (altough I use simple melodies), yet they fit because I use silence as a tool.

Nothing better than a laid back, slow and dirty solo than comes to a halt and then hammers the listener's ear with a catchy melody.

PS: Harmony knowledge and arpegios are important but transcribing other's solo is just as important. Horn solos (or fills) are especially useful IMHO.

+1 on using silence

Just by taking a breath at the beginning of your solo, you immediately get everyone's attention...."Oh! The bass stopped! Something must be about to happen!" It also gives you some time to think about what to say, instead of heading straight to wanksville.

Another important skill for soloing is learning to NOT start on the root of every chord. Always starting on the root is a very ingrained habit for most bassists, but doesn't usually lead to constructing the most melodic lines. You could practice starting every chord on the 3rd or the 7th, for example. That should add more color.