Surf Music is not known for guitar solos, but here's one that keeps me awake at night! Hell, the whole song's a solo. Teisco Del Rey (Dan Forte) needs no introduction instro fans and has serious cred. In addition to filling in for an ailing Don Wilson on a Ventures tour, he produced two of my favorite instro albums-"Music For Lovers", and "The Many Moods of........." which includes this gem, "Pier Pressure". That's Teisco on the melody and kick-ass trad Surf riff. At about 1:15, the criminally under-appreciated "Casper" Rawls explodes onto the scene and lays down a frightening barrage of notes-and it works. If you don't have these CD's, get 'em!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqrz45uF54I&playnext=1&list=PL82585E9995C2A1DB

I'm a fan of solos. I really like to hear someone improvise on a tune. The results can be really exciting (of course there's always the chance of the opposite).

For me, it's an important part of the song. It's invigorating to come up with something new each time, especially live. I approach "soloing" in the studio the same way. Each solo section is improvised each take. Having said that, I'm not a big fan of the composed solo.

When rehearsing, if I say let's take it from the guitar solo, the rest of the band scratches their head and agrees with elreydp; it's all a solo.

Rev

Canadian Surf

http://www.urbansurfkings.com/

Last edited: Apr 21, 2011 17:15:31

This touches on a worry of mine. Still learning my way around a guitar I play sort of like a parrot talks; I play what I've learned to play as I've learned to play it. I have no idea how long it will take me to play free-style. My dad played violin in both symphony orchestras and jazz bands. But then he played for over seventy years and I have less than two now that I'm really trying.

Jeff Beck said if you can't figure out Peter Gunn by yourself in five minutes you have no business playing guitar; fortunately, it took me less than five minutes. I guess there's hope.

Still, I'm glad many surf bands use two guitars. Someone has to accompany the lead.

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

JetKing64 wrote:

Trying to learn solos note for note does you no good.
Get familiar with scales...the minor pentatonic is not
complicated and works in most surf songs, as well as
most rock songs, for that matter. Once you get the
scale down you will be able to improvise a solo... it
may not be Van Halen, but so what?

I respectfully disagree. Learning a solo note for note has many benefits. It can be a great way to develop your ear, which in turn can lead to actually playing what you hear when improvising and composing, as well as making it quicker to learn songs. Learning a solo note for note also gives you insight into a players note choices, phrasing, articulation, and feel. It's a great way to develop a bag of licks. If I find my playing is getting stale, it can often inspire me to play things that I normally wouldn't.

Like anything, it takes time to develop your ear to the point where you can easily learn someone else's solo. It's worth the effort, and gets easier the more you do it.

Rev

PS:The minor pentatonic scale is indeed a great starting point for improvising.

Canadian Surf

http://www.urbansurfkings.com/

Last edited: Apr 22, 2011 07:34:14

Jetking and Rev,

Thanks for your advice. It's good advice. If it were easy everyone would be as good as Segovia, Chet Atkins, Carlos Santana, James Burton, Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, SRV and Dick Dale.

I've got a long way to go and a lot less time to get there. And there are no short cuts. My guitar is calling.

Noel

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

I think any sort of bluesy bendy solo sounds very out of place in surf music. I think there is room for solos occasionally, but they should, IMO, eschew the cliches of blues and rock music.

http://www.reverbnation.com/thedeadranchhands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZEW74mHjQk

Surf music is packed full of flashy solos, and that was the case even back in the '60s, - here are three of my favorite examples:

Dick Dale: Nitro Fuel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHQQ-5twhKw
Eddie & the Showmen: Scratch (http://youtu.be/-AaT0KfB1wA - the original version is not on YouTube)
The Atlantics: Stomping Time (damn, not on YouTube)

A good solo can really up the intensity in many songs, definitely including surf, or take the song to an unexpected place. But definitely not every surf song should have a solo! And I personally like composed solos. Composing a solo is really not much different from composing a bridge to a song - it's another part of the song that takes it to a somewhat different place. Sometimes that's another beautiful place (a melodic solo), sometimes that's a chaotic place (a flashy solo), and many other places in between. It seems like there's quite a bit of surf that's guilty of just having the lead guitarist playing a bunch of pentatonic, trite riffs over the same chord progression as the verse, and calling it 'improvisation.' I'm happy to pass on that sort of a thing. I expect composed solos to be more interesting than that, which is why I'm just fine with them. However, spontaneous solos when played by a talented musician (I'm thinking of Shigeo Naka here, for example) can also be a thing of beauty, and if done really well, the listener can't really know whether it's improvised or composed. (For another example, Hank Marvin claims all of the solos on those early sixties Shadows records were improvised, stuff like Man Of Mystery, FBI, The Frightened City, The Savage, Shadoogie, Gonzales, etc. - and judging from the alternate takes I've heard, he's speaking the truth - now, that's impressive!) Anyway, I'd say there are no rules - except maybe we should make it a rule to forbid any more pentatonic soloing over a I-IV-V progression in any future surf songs! I think we've all heard quite enough of that...

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

I thought minor pentatonic scales werre a blues staple (Mary Had a Little Lamb, Killing Floor, a million others) and never really heard it in good surf recordings. Can anyone point me to an exampple of someone soloing over a minor pentatonic scale in a surf tune?

As for the controversy over scale-based improvising, I'm just not good enough yet to improvise at all. And, I thought improvising was playing a variation of the melody or maybe playing a new phrase that leads back to the melody. Wouldn't that have to use the same key and scale as the melody anyway?

I have to start somewhere.

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Noel wrote:

I thought minor pentatonic scales werre a blues staple
(Mary Had a Little Lamb, Killing Floor, a million
others) and never really heard it in good surf
recordings. Can anyone point me to an exampple of
someone soloing over a minor pentatonic scale in a surf
tune?

Check out the lead in the Blue Stingrays' Monsoon, for one. Granted, they weren't a real surf band per se, but the tune is awesome.

As for the controversy over scale-based improvising,
I'm just not good enough yet to improvise at all. And,
I thought improvising was playing a variation of the
melody or maybe playing a new phrase that leads back to
the melody. Wouldn't that have to use the same key and
scale as the melody anyway?

I have to start somewhere.

The master of the "composed solo"-the late Mr. George Harrison. His solos are mini symphonies.