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Most difficult to play guitar solo

In: Eric Clapton, Rocking in the free world Monday Apr 14,2008

Eric Clapton Warning: This post may be a controversial one!

Yep! Since a few days I keep on thinking about difficult to play guitar solos. And guess what! I am not thinking about Malmsteen or Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. Hell, no! The song that keeps on running through my head is “It’s probably me” of Sting and Eric Clapton. Did you ever try to play that solo? I know I did some time ago and I just couldn’t get it right. I don’t speak about the notes, cause there are not that many or that fast, but man, those note are so full of soul that you just can’t reach them!

The solo is so warm and Clapton plays it with so much feeling that it makes it so difficult to play it right…

And you know what? I remember in the high school about this guy that managed to nail the theme solo of Wonderful tonight with such feeling that nobody could play it the same. Again, there are only a few notes and I think this song (Wonderful tonight) was one of the most played song when I was in high school, but this was the only guy that managed to play it right.

I think that the most difficult to play guitar solos are not the fast ones, but those solos that requires feeling, interpretation, understanding for the notes you play and a lot of soul.

I think that as in life, or even more than in life, in music, the most difficult thing you can do is really express yourself.So, what’s your most “difficult to play” guitar solo?

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Tags: Eric Clapton, Sting

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13 Responses to “Most difficult to play guitar solo”

Bobby Revell
April 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

I don’t spend much time at all learning guitar solos from other guitarists - I spend all my time working on my own style. Chances are, Clapton probably improvised the solo and plays it differently every time. This solo requires really lite gage strings and a strat to get the right tone. Trying to copy a “feel” solo like this is much like imitating someone’s voice, like the comedian Rich Little does. If I played this song with a band, I’d just make up my own solo instead of copying his. Nonetheless, it is a very cool and smoothly phrased solo:)
Ovidiu
April 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

Well, you may be right, I have never thought about it this way, it may be like imitating someone’s voice Nice idea!
Mogarr
April 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

I’d say anything by David Gilmore is the hardest type for me . Comfortably Numb for instance;-)
Ovidiu
April 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

So you understand me
Dr. J
April 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Some songs have “original” guitar solos that are so memorable that you can’t just improvise over them; -you must at least pay homage to them! I’m thinking of Clapton’s “Cocaine”, for one…
Pribek
April 14th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

Curious that you site Clapton’s “Cocaine” there J. I can see that song and Clapton’s approach to it as a perfect example of what Bobby Revell advocates above. Clapton took some basic elements of J.J. Cale’s feel, groove and even tone but, not the actual note for note solo ideas and, came up with a “memorable” and “original” thing.
Mogarr
April 14th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

I think the real problem we tend to have with these slower/feeling rich solos is’nt our gear or a peculiar difficulty with slow melodic solos , it’s just the fact that these type solos are iconic.
Most of the time you can cover a song while playing whatever you like and unless you really screw the pooch noone in the audience can tell (excluding other players who can do it too,don’t worry about them cause if they had shows of thier own they wouldn’t be at yours;-P). But iconic solos are so engrained into everyone that even a small change of tone or phraseing stands out like a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

Bottom line if you feel the need to play a certain solo/song just as recorded learning to mimic your idols style and a modleing amp may get you close but in my opinion taking the feel and making it part of your style and using it the way only you can will result in more happy moments for you.
Ovidiu
April 14th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Indeed, Dr. J, there are some songs that you just can’t change because you will ruin the exact essence of the song. OK for Cocaine and this one, It’s probably me, even if it sounds like it has an improvised solo, it has so much personality that you just need to play it like that.

Jack, Clapton added his personal touch, which makes him who he is, there’s not that many around managing to take a song and change it that much that it becomes a new song. I have always admired Guns’N Roses for their version of Knocking, because of the radical change of the song, preserving the taste and adding value making it popular around a totally new audience. But one needs to have great talent for this…

Mogarr, I think that if you totally change the song, works better, if you just change the solo for ex, it would sound fake. So, in my opinion, if I am going to change something, at least I do my best to come up with a new version of the song, reflecting my personality. If I would just change the solo, it would sound like I could not do it like the original player or that I am too lazy to learn the solo, right?
Mogarr
April 15th, 2008 at 12:15 am

Ovidiu, I would agee and personally never try to get too over involved with the recorded versions.
For instance Draggin’the line sounds a bit different tuned down to B and thru a line 6 set on insane ;-).
BTW I’m 41 years old , been playing since 15 and realised my limitations and strengths awile back.
There are some older songs that I really refused to play untill I got the note for note thing down Crazy Train comes to mind , that took awile before I felt I was close enough to perform it live ;-).

Still the Pink Floyd stuff blows me away with the touch and sustain involved so those are for me and my friends to do for fun not infront of a audience.
MG
April 15th, 2008 at 2:17 am

Hi Ovidiu-I am so glad that you are citing the “feeling” solos and guitarists as the more difficult things to play. One, I do have a bias towards more blues-based and feel guitar styles than the Yngwie and Satriani type playing. Yes-their solos are definitely more difficult to play-they are more technical, and faster-paced for one thing. But take a look at a “solo” from Neil Young like-the one he did for Cinnamon Girl-one note basically, but that note is played with a hell of passion.
Same thing for a lot of Clapton’s solos and guitar work.
I think Satriani and Yngwie more technical oriented solo stuff lends itself to being recreated verbatim by guitarists, while the blues or feel guitarist’s stuff can’t be duplicated as well. Maybe as others have said, the general idea, but not verbatim.
MG
April 15th, 2008 at 2:20 am

I meant to say “a hell of a lot of passion” and my intention wasn’t to put down the Satch or Yngwie lovers.
Ovidiu
April 15th, 2008 at 7:46 am

Maybe the fact that the audience of blues is more oriented to improvising, as well as the blues itself, maybe guitar players that play blues put more weight on improvising their own solos in blues melodies, while in technical rock, for ex, considering the technical difficulty of playing those solos, players put weight on reproducing them. And the improvisation is not THAT important there, as in blues…
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