Tab be or not tab be

Do you write guitar solos or improvise them?

I'm in the process of learning the setlist for a new band (again - a long story). It's soul/blues/rock thing which is new for me after spending years in pop/indie/rock and acoustic outfits, and I'm also the only guitarist (alongside drums, bass, sax, keys and multi-vocals) which also new for me.

I was working through a couple of arrangements which needed guitar solos, and I did my usual thing of plugging into the looper (Digitech Jamman original) and improvising over the chords to get the juices flowing.  I pinched this approach from David Gilmour who records two or three solos for new Pink Floyd tracks and then selects the best building blocks from each. (Or so I read).

A couple of the songs in the setlist are close in key and progression, as you'd expect from the repertoire, and playing them side-by-side made me notice how similar my guitar breaks sounded.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't playing the same two or three licks over and over, I was focusing on doing something that served each song. But still, on playback over a coffee, the similarity jumped up and bit me on the a**e . And being the only guitarist, I know I'm going to have be able to deliver a varied style. I can't rely on a second guitarist to provide something different.

So I decided that I'd change my approach. I'd already written out song charts, so I decide to actively write and tab my guitar parts and solo. The results were really surprising. I ended up with two or three solos that sounded like me, but were a much better fit for the songs AND sounded very different from each other.

Here's how I did it.

1. I put the guitar down.
2. I listened to each song 3 or 4 times, really focusing on how it was flowing, where the tension and release was, what the other instruments were doing, and understanding the lyrics.
3. Then I played the songs in my head verse-by-verse, chorus-by-chorus. While I was doing this I sang the phrase I thought would fit. Not 64th note triplets with two handed tapping, but the key melody notes.
4. I made a conscious effort to come up with two or three options, and tried to include notes and timings that were outside the obvious. (At this point, my wife decided to go shopping).
5. I picked the guitar up and started to put it together bar-by-bar, tabbing it out as I went. This made me much more conscious of how I wanted to play the changes, and of using different voices on the guitar. I made choices rather than adopting a trusted approach.

Here's what I learned.
1. Some songs need more care and attention. Others will bear just letting the dog bark.
2. Playing these songs now feels very different, I get ideas and my cues from more than just the vocals or drums.
3. I'm actually fluid as a player within quite a narrow range. This helped me broaden what I was doing  I actually got to apply some of the techniques my teachers have shown me.
4. I am now able to focus on the quality and feel of the notes I am playing - I guess it really is not just what you play but the way that you play it.  I'm playing with more space.  I think this is because I have programmed the songs in at a deeper level.
5. The notes in my head, are not always that well connected to the ones under my fingers.  This means I'm probably playing quite visually using patterns. The singing thing helped.
6. Tabbing the solo helped me memorise things more quickly.

Better than that, the band noticed the difference and they liked it.

I could go on, but there's dozens more songs to do.