Straight Vs Syncopated Soloing, FINAL MIX WITH COMMENTS! Options

[Pedja Simovic]

Hello GMC !

Welcome to final mix and comments for class type collaboration #4. This time we focused on Rhythm and Phrasing and main idea was to use Straight and Syncopated rhythm while soloing. More about this collaboration you can find HERE. To generalize everything in one sentence, you were supposed to use down beat type phrasing (Straight) and up beat type phrasing (Syncopated). Most of you did really well and I am satisfied with your takes. For most of you this was definitely new and unknown territory which made it even more challenge to do something in this collab. I hope chord progression was not difficult so that you could also express your ideas melodically. Again, the main intention of this collaboration was rhythm and phrasing so comments will be directed towards this as primary aspect. I sorted takes and comments in alphabetical order as usuall so go ahead and read them now; in the meanwhile enjoy the final mix !

Number of participants : 13


First up is Berko (0:00 - 0:29)

Very good sound first of all. It is always important to have a good sound in order to get your ideas across. Your clean sound with added effects (delay and phaser I believe) was excellent.
Your rhythmic ideas were really good. I like how your melodic lines also fitted in context of question and answer phrasing with rhythms you choose. There were both straight and syncopated rhythms with nice usage of triplets and of beat phrasing.
I enjoyed listening to this take even with couple of flaws that it had. Like we spoke earlier on forums, some of the rhythm figures sounded a bit sloppier then others. The reason for this was not your understanding of rhythm, on contrary it was because of your technique! I noticed when you tried to play hammer ons and pull offs, you tend to rush or displace rhythm. I would advise working more on that technique to get it more across in future solos. I am commenting on this technique for this collaboration solo and I must say I haven't noticed this before in your solos. Definitely work on it. Another thing I would like to mention is couple of melodic choices in your solo. I advise you to transcribe your solo (as I will advise everybody who recorded for this collaboration!) in order to analyze your own rhythm figures and melodic choices. When you do that, get back at me and let me know what you liked 100% and what sounded not so great.
Overall very nice take Berko, good job man, thank you for participating !



Caelumamittendum (0:29 - 0:56)

Ben your sound was very interesting and unexpected to say the least. I enjoyed it a lot and it added a whole other element to final mix in my opinion. Well done man!
When it comes to your rhythm, you were mostly using syncopated phrasing. I would have liked to hear more balanced take or at least couple of more straight rhythm phrases. I recommend you transcribe your take and analyze it in Guitar pro. I know how much you love to write music so this is your chance to put your ear to the test and analyze your own take. Let me know when you finish it, shoot me a pm or via msn and I will analyze it back with you.
Very interesting melodic approach, bluesy oriented soloing with blues scale. I like how it all came out with your sound it was good.
The very last section sounds like you had trouble placing rhythms on right spots. It will be difficult to transcribe that but I look forward to see how you would actually correct that and play it.
Overall excellent sound and melodic approach. Syncopated soloing is there but take needs more straight rhythm.
Thanks for participating Ben !


Dexxter (0:56- 1:23)

Dexxter I have heard this distortion in your previous takes and it became your trademark sound by now in my ears. I like it and it sounds great. I would maybe add some delay to it but that's just my personal preference.
Your solo was great balance of both straight and syncopated rhythms. I especially like how you developed your solo in the very beginning with question and answer type phrasing in both rhythm and melody. Well done man. As solo progressed your rhythm started to drop a bit (it was still in time!) but ideas didn't respond as well as in the beginning.
I would like to mention one thing here when it comes to soloing on guitar and that is RANGE ! When you solo in very low register with this type of distortion and eq settings, notes are unclear and don't sound as pleasant as in the middle and high range. This is perhaps the only critique that I have about this solo. I would definitely avoid playing lower range with this type of sound. Listen to your last section of the solo and you will hear what I mean.
As with everybody, try to transcribe your solo in Guitar pro and contact me so we can analyze it further.
Excellent take Dexxter and thank you for joining this collaboration !


JamesT (1:24 - 1:51)

Jim congratulations, this was one of the best takes in this collaboration. Excellent choice of rhythms, a lot of variety on starting and ending phrases really made this very interesting to listen and enjoy.
I know you like to prepare your solos and compose, so this adds even more to your composing skills. Having said this I would like you to do Guitar pro file of your solo and send it to me. Feel free to let me know which parts do you prefer, what you don't prefer etc. I would basically like you to do your own analysis of your take and your intentions with it !
In my opinion this was very well structured and had combination of both straight and syncopated rhythms in whole solo. Sometimes it seemed like there was more syncopated soloing but you did provide straight rhythm soloing as well. Among all this, your take was very melodic which really makes it musical with all the devices you applied here.
Well done and thank you for participating in this collab Jim !



Jdriver (1:51 - 2:18)

Jeff this was very nice take. Your sound was clean and very pleasing for the ear in my opinion. Your melodic approach was very strong as all the phrases were connected with each other. In other words you weren't jumping around the guitar neck between your phrases but rather they were within octave range and made melodic sense with rhythm you applied.
Speaking of rhythm, this backing track has a Latin feel to it, so automatically it has a tendency to make you play syncopated (off beat) type rhythms. This is what you did and I think many guys who didn't submitt their take would have done the same ! Actually wrk and couple of others submitted extra takes before they got it right in the end which just shows that this wasn't such an easy task as it seemed at the beginning.
I like your syncopated phrasing here but as I mentioned above, I was looking for balance or combination of both straight and syncopated rhythms. I suggest you listen to final mix and try to determine by ear where everybody is playing straight and where syncopated phrasing occur. Compare all the takes to your take and notice how your take is very syncopated with up beat type rhythm and phrasing even with notes carrying over up beats. Ideally I would like you to transcribe your take in Guitar pro (like I suggest to everybody who submitted take for this collaboration) so that we can together analyze it and point good and things that need improvement.
I will send you also via PM Guitar pro file with different straight rhythms in it so you can hear what I am talking about here.
Overall very melodic and syncopated take which I like but needs much more straight rhythm in it (for this collaboration).
Thank you for participating Jeff always pleasure to have you in my collabs !



Kaznie_NL (2:18 - 2:45)

Kaznie I enjoyed listening to your take. I think your playing has matured a lot over past couple of months. I have been keeping track of your takes like with everybody in my collabs and it is safe to say that you have really improved a lot. Your phrasing was much weaker, rhythm was displaced out of beat and time, but now your melodic ideas sound much stronger and phrasing is spot on. Well done man I am really happy with your progress please keep up the good work and don't fly too high now !!!
Regarding rhythm in your take, it was very well balanced between straight and syncopated rhythm. I think you did great except when you were doing slides ! That technique obviously made rhythm and phrasing weaker so I suggest you work on it.
Like with everybody, I suggest you transcribe your take in Guitar pro and let me know when you finish it, then we can analyze it together and take it further.
Very melodic and bluesy solo, well done Kaz, thank you for participating !



Kjutte (2:46 - 3:13)

Kjutte this was one of the best takes in this collaboration from melodic and harmonic approach. I am very happy how you approached whole take and the way melodies had question and answer in them all the time. Really impressive and well done man.
On the other hand, we spoke about this when you submitted your take, it is very syncopated and just syncopated I was expecting combination of straight and syncopated rhythms but here backing track took you for a ride and you ended up doing gipsy jazz soloing with trills and off beat placement. Don't get me wrong, I love this take, but focus of this specific collaboration was on rhythm (straight and syncopated) so my main intention was to get you guys to play that. The same thing happened to Jeff and Andy in the beginning. I am glad that Andy corrected it but I would have liked to hear another take from you and Jeff with straight rhythm in it as well.
My advice is to transcribe this solo and send me Guitar pro so that we can both analyze it and point out strong and weak parts. You already know what I think of melodic and harmonic approach, it is matter of rhythm choice that needs to change here.
Regardless of everything this was very beautifull take and it definitely sounded different from all other takes, added extra element to the final mix.
Thank you for participating Kjutte and well done !




Outlaw2112 (3:13 - 3:40)

John your take was mostly syncopated but it had straight rhythm soloing in it as well. I know you submitted this very late and thats why I appreciate the effort. I am sure if you did couple of more takes like in previous collaboration, you would have had awesome take.
In this take phrasing is weak so that makes it hard to determine what your intention was - on or of beat phrasing.
Like with other takes, I suggest you do Guitar pro for this one and send it to me so we can analyze it further. If you have some extra time now it would be nice if you sent me another take over this backing track. This is basically to see how much you can improve over single backing track. It proved to be effective in last collaboration, I am sure it will be great in this one as well.
Again I appreciate very much you submitting your take, compared to some other guys that didn't submit theirs at all! I am just trying to point you in the right direction as to what needs to happen in future. I would like to here more straight rhythm here, not too much but just couple more phrases (2 or 3 tops!). Melodic approach was nice I enjoyed listening to it but phrasing needs most work here.
Thank you for your take John I hope to hear soon from you regarding new take and Guitar pro file (if you get a chance) !



Oxac (3:40 - 4:08)

This was one of the best takes in this collaboration. The reason why I liked this take was a) you managed to do both straight and syncopated rhythms and your phrasing was very laid back and different from everybody.
Really excellent take with great phrasing that hooks the listener immediately. Melodic choice was almost perfect in my opinion. To further analyze this solo I would like you to transcribe it in Guitar pro and send it to me. We can then discuss what were the things that you could have done differently in certain spots and comment on good things of your solo.
Overall I am very pleased with what happened in this solo.
Excellent take Oxac and thank you for recording multiple takes and participating !



sted (4:08 - 4:35)

Sted this was very melodic take. I like how you did question and answer phrasing here. In this take you had almost every phrase as syncopated so I have to say you needed to balance it out more with straight rhythm.
Melodic and harmonic approach was great but rhythm had some trouble as I mentioned. I think you along Jeff, Kjutte and Andy were pulled by this backing track to play more syncopated phrases. Your solos were very melodic but as I mentioned earlier main goal here was to learn phrasing and to solo with straight and syncopated rhythm.
In conclusion I would like you to transcribe your solo in Guitar pro and send it to me so we can analyze it further. We will discuss how some phrases could have been played differently (how to turn syncopated into straight phrase).
Overall nice work Sted and I hope to hear soon from you regarding Guitar pro file !
Thank you for submitting your take and participating !



Velvet Roger (4:35 - 5:02)

Roger very nice take man. I enjoyed question and answer type phrasing and your melodic approach was excellent. There were couple of spots where your phrasing dropped but overall it was very good.
If you have time, transcribe your take and send it to me. There is couple of trills that need adjusting and some minor things but overall it was very good take.
You definitely did both straight and syncopated rhythm which I like so well done man !
Nothing to add or take except to thank you for joining this collaboration Roger. Since you are on auto sign up I will see you in next one as well
Thanks Roger !



wrk (5:03 - 5:30)

Andy after couple of takes you got it right with this one
Excellent development from intro all the way to the ending of your solo. Melodic choice was great, and on top of that you showed control over straight and syncopated rhythms.
I have nothing to add or take from your solo man. One of the best solos in this collaboration no doubt.
Like with other guys, I would like you to transcribe your solo and send it to me so we can analyze it further.
Thank you for your take(s) Andy and well done man!



Pedja Simovic (5:30 - 5:59)

I was told to write comments even for my take for all collaborations so here I go.
In my opinion this take demonstrates various rhythm and phrasing ideas. From very intro and opening to ending you can hear short and long rhythm values. The reason I choose this approach is to teach you how to develop solo with different devices (as in previous collaboration).
Very beginning of solo shows you how you can use straight and syncopated rhythms with only couple of notes. In other words, you don't have to be very technical player to execute straight and syncopated soloing.
As solo goes along you can hear numerous repetitions and sequences with variations. The reason why we use repetitions and sequence is to guide the listener into what we play and hook him/her onto it. The reason why variations are used is to avoid predictability and "too much of" something. You can also see how I used both quarter and 8th note triplets in different contexts, where one sounded like syncopated while 8th note triplets sounded like straight soloing more like.
For ending I choose A melodic minor or even E whole tone scale if you will, followed by F melodic minor line in 3 octaves almost.
For further analysis of this solo you can check sign up thread HERE or download Guitar pro file of my solo HERE and do some analyzing on your own !



Thank you everybody for submitting your takes. This was not easy collaboration and after hearing all your takes I am positive that in the future we can use some more straight and syncopated soloing into other aspects of our playing.
For those of you who didn't submit your take, I hope you will be able to do so in my next collaboration !

Feel free to ask any questions here and I hope you enjoyed reading your comments and hopefully learned something from them and final mix.


Pedja

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This post has been edited by Pedja Simovic: Jun 15 2009, 06:27 PM