{"id":57,"date":"2011-12-27T00:55:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T00:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanlewis.org\/icarus\/2011\/12\/27\/play-it-guitar-solos-pt-i\/"},"modified":"2019-04-01T09:51:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T13:51:28","slug":"play-it-guitar-solos-pt-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ethanlewis.org\/icarus\/2011\/12\/27\/play-it-guitar-solos-pt-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Play it!–Guitar Solos, pt. I"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who know me know that the guitar is my number one hobby<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve been playing in earnest for over 25 years, and as I always say, I should be a lot better.\u00a0 I don’t currently play any better than I did on the leads of this song back in 2003<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, I do ok; and I have a style which incorporates a variation of hybrid picking that gives me my own sound.\u00a0 But besides a failure to practice consistently, I have always had the serious weakness of not learning songs.\u00a0 I have always been impressed by people who can learn songs, and famous guitar solos.\u00a0 While I would always want to inject my own “thing” into any song, I do wish that I could play some trademark guitar parts “note for note”.\u00a0 Honestly, I should just dedicate a summer (I am a teacher, and I get long vacations) to doing this.\u00a0 Style differences don’t matter: after all, Eddie Van Halen<\/a> famously claims to have learned Eric Clapton<\/a>‘s solos this way, and there is no hint of Slowhand in Mr. 5150’s playing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking about this made me want to come up with a list of solos that I would like to learn.\u00a0 They are presented below, in no particular order.\u00a0 Some would not be all that tricky, others might take a lifetime.\u00a0 But if I could play these solos, I would really consider myself an adept guitarist.\u00a0 To other musicians out there, what are the solos you want to learn?<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nOk, let’s start out with the white whale.\u00a0 This is probably unattainable, even if I live to be 106 years old. This duet, “Mediterranean Sunset”, between fusion master Al DiMeola<\/a> and flamenco genius Paco DeLucia<\/a> can be found on the album Friday Night In San Francisco<\/i><\/a> (which also features the legendary John McLaughlin<\/a>).\u00a0 I bought this my first year in college and literally wore out the vinyl listening to it.\u00a0 One of my best friends was a very talented heavy metal guitarist, who used to play me the latest from all of the big haired, spandex clad wielders of Floyd Rose equipped shred machines.\u00a0 I would play this piece to shut him up.<\/span><\/p>\n