Favorite Songs to Play Over

[The_Solipsist]

Post what songs you like to solo over, the instrument, the key, the scale, and why.



Electric Guitar(Heavy Distortion) - Interworld and the New Innocence - Praxis - B Minor

After hearing Buckethead's video of him playing this live on my Secret Recipe DVD, I started soloing over this piece. The playing style totally changes when the song hits it's climax, I usually start the beginning with an ethereal kind of playing, just playing a simple melody along the chord changes and using the volume knob and some vibrato to garner the tone I want. Then, the drums kick in, and from there it's just heavy riffs and fast solos. The song just gets so intense, it really just lets you let go of everything while you're playing over it.


Electric Guitar(Clean, Jazzy Tone) - Jazz Ballad(?) - Michael Angelo Batio - A(D) minor/A harmonic minor/E(A) phrygian

I love play jazz, and this has a nice minor jazz chord progression to play over. The key changes are really nice, allowing you to change keys a lot while you're playing. Just fun and a easy to play over once you know your scales and technique well enough.

[Pelican Man]

For the record, I predominantly play bass, so these are the songs I like to improve bass lines underneath.

Nothing Else Matters - Metallica.

Pretty simple chord progression in 3/4 Emin; Emin for 2 bars, Dmaj, Cmaj, and ending with a G-F# rundown. Leaves a lot of room for mucking around. I normally like to start the song off simply, letting the guitar showcase, then doing some simply melodies under the guitar from the second verse and beyond, working pretty simply off the 3rd 4th and 5th, occasionally using an octave, though in some spots it's best to avoid it as it tends to stick out too much.

Still Got the Blues - Gary Moore.

This one's 3/4 again, and I'm pretty sure it's in Amin. The verse's chord progression leaves a lot of room for bass work, and being blues, you can generally work out some pretty cool stuff by feeling it out. The progression in the verse makes the root notes D G C F B E A, with a rundown at the end which is always good to leave in for familiarity. I'll usually go simplistic and just have leading notes connecting each root note, and randomize between playing the high or low octave on the G, F and E root notes. During the end guitar solo I tend to show off and run around on the bass, but other than that the improv is mostly about feel and 'less is more'.

Knockin' on Heaven's Door - Guns N Roses.

Haven't played this one in a while, actually. But I remember I'd spend ages working on this when I was relatively new at bass. There's not even much to it, just look at what Duff does, and chop and change it how you see fit. You can work out some pretty cool stuff, and it's fun to start improving on.