Solos Quotes & Sayings

I wanted all my solos to be something you could sing along with — John Frusciante

In high school, I was Mr. Choir Boy. I had solos, I was helping out the tenors with their parts and our choir teacher would ask me what songs we should do. — Lucas Grabeel

These aren't two solos, this is a duet that isn't taking itself at all seriously. — David Levithan

You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that's great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don't want to get in the way of the song. — Benmont Tench

Sometimes when I do an overdub solo, they'll keep four or five of my attempts and then mix the bits that they like to make a solo up out of them. It's not against the rules, really - I can learn my own solos, then. But that's the whole beauty of multi-track recording, isn't it? — Jeff Beck

I'd be very honored to be the ambassador to drum solos. — Neil Peart

And echoes to my singing. More sounds went on - an arc-like melody created using an echo machine, and then a guitar solo at the end that was made by selecting fragments from a number of improvised solos. Finally, I sang the song after jogging in the studio, because for some reason I wanted to sound out of breath. Of course, I was singing the same words and melody as I had been on the earlier, straighter, version of the song, but now to a vastly altered musical track - a fact that also affected how I sang. The song, as it was released, — David Byrne

It would be a dream come true if I could just go from studio to studio and play solos. — Michael Schenker

Even when I'm touring, I feel like a sideman ... everybody's working together. We get to play longer solos; it's not just "Here's the record! Thank you for coming Goodnight" ... it has always had a "band" feel instead of being a singer and his backup band ... — Vince Gill

Once I started getting mainstream people to my shows, I realized we were taking too many solos, and they were too long. I started gauging when people were going on their iPhones. — Robert Glasper

In those days before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy, and before learning of the so-called bebop era
by the way, I have some thoughts about that word, "bebop"
my first jazz hero ever, jazz improvisor hero, was Lester Young. I was a big "Lester Young-oholic," and all of my buddies were Lester Young-oholics. We'd get together and dissect, analyze, discuss, and listen to Lester Young's solos for hours and hours and hours. He was our god. — J.J. Johnson

I can draw with sound. That's the most useful thing I learned in terms of what my craft is ... The arrangements were mine. They were little lines and stuff that I had written myself ... And I was locked into this idea that vocals didn't count, melodies didn't count, songwriting craftsmanship didn't count. The only thing that counted was high arching guitar solos. — Linda Ronstadt

Sound is what drives my solos, not verbal concepts, I never think 'I'm going to use a Lydian Dominant scale and then go up a half-step', even though that might be exactly what I end up doing ... — John Scofield

In one of the most scathing of these reviews, New York Times critic Robert Palmer wrote: "He has mastered the art of making lyrics that are banal - and, when they are about women, frequently condescending - sound vaguely important. He has mastered the art of making the simplest drum accent sound as portentous as a peal of thunder and of introducing his side-men's solos with such dramatic flourishes that they almost sound like gifted, sensitive musicians rather than like the hacks they are. He has won a huge following by making emptiness seem substantial and Holiday Inn lounge schlock sound special. — Hank Bordowitz

I got home, picked up my ax, turned on the four-track and just played it ... I played three solos back to back on Cemetery Gates ... the next morning, the second and third solos weren't bad, but the first had that first take magic ! .. I didn't touch it ... — Dimebag Darrell

What is it with the St. Delphi brothers and their attraction to halfs? — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I try to look at most of my solos as a musical piece within the song, not, say, showing off. — Richie Sambora

Punk came along and grunge made guitar solos uncool. — David Pajo

Blues teaches you to develop coherent solos, because the form you're playing over is so basic. You have to develop leads that go someplace. — Tommy Bolin

From now on all of my guitar solos will be in morse code. — Jason Hicks

I can't play long solos anymore without boring myself. — Eric Clapton

Before I could even raise a hand, he spun around like the wind, letting go of the dagger. It smacked into the chest of the white-garbed Guard sneaking up on him. Darting forward, he pulled the blade free before the Guard collapsed, and then threw it again, taking out the other Guard who'd cornered Solos.
Damn. Aiden was a badass ninja. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Aiden has gone Rambo on us. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

It's really not a stretch. The checks and balances are the same. The drums are the executive branch. The jazz orchestra is the legislative branch. Logic and reason are like jazz solos. The bass player is the judicial branch. One our greatest ever is Milt Hinton, and his nickname is "The Judge." — Wynton Marsalis

How could I resist? Look, I love that record and have nothing but great, great memories of my time with BLACK SABBATH . Tony was really busy but got his solos to me at the last minute as he promised and they are just fantastic. I think BLACK SABBATH fans will be over the moon when they hear what he's done. As for Roger and Ian , well, they just sound great on this song so it really did become 'Black Purple'. Personally, I love the irony of it all. — Ian Gillan

The amazing thing about Sweets [Edison] was that he exactly spoke the way that he played! He was really unique, the one and only. He was one of the greatest Blues players that I ever heard and played with. Nobody can play like Sweets man, nobody! Most of us, musicians, frequently quote Sweets' phrases in our solos. Like Lester Young, Sweets had a big influence on us musicians, especially when we play some Blues. — Ray Brown

The chords in 'Light My Fire' are based on [John] Coltrane's version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn't believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable. — Robby Krieger

In the '90s, guitar solos were dead. — Chris Daughtry

Every time I listen back to solos of mine I'll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can't stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don't think so much like that. — John Abercrombie

Barney Kessel was 'Mr. Guitar,' the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. He had an amazing imagination, his solos were incredible, he swung his tail off, he was a heck of an arranger and could out-read anybody ... — Larry Coryell

Music can be useful during training to help get you psyched, and I still listen to music on easy climbs or in the gym. But during cutting-edge solos or really hard climbs, I unplug. There shouldn't be a need for extra motivation on big days, be it music or anything else. It should come from within. — Alex Honnold

I used to try to play like [Miles Davis], and Miles caught me copying him one night at Birdland. He said, 'Hey man, why don't you play some of your own stuff.' So, I finally did, because I had copied all his solos. — Freddie Hubbard

When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs. — Eddie Vedder

I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going. — Todd Rundgren

I don't dictate the solos and I don't dictate the vocal harmonies. — Dan Hicks

James Michael and I played everything on the album, then brought in the guys in my band to add their spirit to it with solos and specific parts. — Deana Carter

Our little solos are a note in an immense chorus vibrating grandly through the universe, a chorus which accepts and harmonizes the whir of the cricket and the long drum-roll of the stars. — Harriet Monroe

I wasn't born an early bird.
It took three different alarms clocks blasting in my ear every morning to wake me up. And on special occasions when I'd sleep through the bird caws, beeping, and extreme drum solos, Stella would have the privilege of yanking me from my bed. — Joddie Zeng

It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos of seeming to last much longer than it actually did. — P.G. Wodehouse

At the bottom of the stairs, I caught sight of a tall Sentinel with brown hair pulled into a low ponytail. Solos. As far as I recalled, I hadn't threatened him with bodily harm - at least not to his face. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I do media every day I tour and the travel itself is a bit testing, so I don't get to do much gregarious activity when I'm on the road, but I do enough barbequing and enough hanging out and training with enough law enforcement and military to keep me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and to make sure my guitar solos every night breath fire. — Ted Nugent

I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that it's extremely predictable, it's a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and there's a certain musical virtuosity involved in it. — Ken Burns

Guitar solos bore the hell out of me. Only a few guitarists interest me, and it's not about the solos they play, it's about the grooves they create. — Dan Auerbach

Learn to play the piano, man, and then you can figure out crazy solos of your own. — Dizzy Gillespie

Solos I kind of [couldn't] care less about. I know most people probably think that's what I care *most* about, but it's really the melody playing that is the cornerstone of what I'm working on. — Joe Satriani

I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through. — Brian Setzer

Guitar solos, to me, should be a really articulate way to make fun of guitar solos. — Josh Homme

It's quite a trick to use three instruments to tell the story of two people, but Vores carried it off; three, for once, is not a crowd. Each member of the trio gets important solos, but there is also a real ensemble character. — Richard Dyer

He was very much concerned with logic and function, he always worked his solos out before playing them. — Jamie Muir

With solos, I don't like to be too prepared going in - I like to surprise myself. — Alex Lifeson

The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me. — Colin Meloy

It wasn't a class system where I was the better guy and he was the second-rate guy. That was his role and my role was to play the solos. But he took great pride in his technique as a rhythm guitarist. — Wayne Kramer

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos. — Tom Verlaine

And I've also come to the conclusion that, as far as guitar solos and things like that are concerned, it's more important to complement the music rather than take away from it. — Dave Navarro

In rock & roll heaven, there ARE drum solos, but only the drummers can hear them. — Lin Brehmer

I'll get up there and I'll do my guitar solos in one of those space outfits. — Ace Frehley

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary. — Lee Konitz

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. — Anne Taylor Fleming

On 'Metallica,' I recorded six or seven different guitar solos for almost every song, took the best aspects of each solo, mapped out a master solo and made a composite. Then I learned how to play the composite solo, tightened it up and replayed it for the final version. — Kirk Hammett

I have them a few minutes to absorb everything while I teased Ubie, who only had to recover from his near-death experience. I was so glad Reyes hadn't ripped him to shreds. I liked him much better un-shredded. Unlike, say, my preference for lettuce or heavy metal guitar solos. — Darynda Jones

I can't use logic concerning my feelings, my feelings demand musical notes, violins, guitar solos, the stomping of feet, poetic language, metaphors, poetic lines about birds or deserts or tree-crowded forests. — Noah Cicero

There was a lot that was tricky about playing with [Thelonious Monk]. It's a musical language where there's really no lyrics. It's something you feel and you're hearing. It's like an ongoing conversation. You really had to listen to this guy. Cause he could play the strangest tempos, and they could be very in-between tempos on some of those compositions. You really had to listen to his arrangements and the way he would play them. On his solos, you'd really have to listen good in there. You'd have to concentrate on what you were doing as well. — Roy Haynes

With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by. — John Bonham

I don't like drum solos, to be honest with you, but if anybody ever told me he didn't like Buddy Rich I'd right away say go and see him, at least the once. — Charlie Watts

Solos are like sex, so it's surprising to me that there aren't more guys playing them — Richie Sambora

I think my first impression (of Bix Beiderbecke) was the lasting one. I remember very clearly thinking, 'Where, what planet, did this guy come from? Is he from outer space?' I'd never heard anything like the way he played-not in Chicago, no place. The tone-he had this wonderful, ringing cornet tone. He could have played in a symphony orchestra with that tone. But also the intervals he played, the figures-whatever the hell he did. There was a refinement about his playing. You know, in those days I played a little trumpet, and I could play all the solos from his records, by heart. — Benny Goodman

I don't like guitar solos that are like, 'Look at me, look at me!' I like guitar solos that are little songs within the songs. — Taylor Hawkins

A lot of solos I hear sound so incredible, but they sound like somebody practicing. They sound a bit soulless - fiery, but at the same time, lacking in spirit and soul. — Jeff Beck

I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that. — Joey Santiago

Affectors Harmagedon is a solid blast of PROG metal complete with burning solos, odd time signatures, orchestral highlights, and Rock riffs that will tear your head off! Excited that I could be a part of this album! — Jordan Rudess

I'm not into solos, I'm into lyrics. — Adam Jones

Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they are all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist. — Ritchie Blackmore

I learned a lot about lead; you don't have to blow your cookies in the first bar. It is much harder to be simple that to be complicated during solos. — Tommy Bolin

I would have to say I'm bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I've done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn't interested in showing off any more. — Kirk Hammett

World Play is very '70s arena rock, very raw and in your face, and that's what we wanted. We recorded it in a very off-the-cuff manner and didn't really plan out how we were going to play. My solos are first takes. — Neal Schon

I'd rather have sung one of Elektra's solos. I can relate to her anger." "You — Anna Adams

Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn't get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player. — Bruce Springsteen

Everybody free-solos. When you walk to the store, you're free-soloing. It's just a matter of the difficulty of the route. — John Bachar

We don't really have more than acouple of solos. It's just the way our music is put together. — Tina Weymouth

It was by listening to Goodman's band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up. — Alvin Lee

It really shocked me just to hear of the fans' response to 'St. Anger' not having guitar solos. — Kirk Hammett

I'm sure if Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing classic guitar solos on YouTube. — Peter Capaldi

I love classical music; I love the way it's worked ... all those chord sequences so I often use that sort of effect in my solos. — Jon Lord

I have never found a solo life is devastated.At times it is lonely.It is a selfish life doing only the things you want to do. That is what the general public are jealous of but are not prepared to take the loneliness to reap the excitement that only solos can accept without having to consider others. — Theresa Sjoquist

I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that. — Harvey Pekar

That's the exact concept behind the music: to take that kind of, I guess whatever you want to call it, jazz sensibility - but not have it be about solos. — Charlie Hunter

Dave Matthews is mixing violin solos with saxophone solos and it's bad for the baby — Rob Sheffield

Nowadays I get complaints about long drum solos, but in those days they wanted me to keep on going so they could go over to the bar and have a drink. — Aynsley Dunbar

I love my climbing shoes. Virtually all of my big solos have been in the TC Pros. They are the most important thing when I'm soloing. — Alex Honnold

Church was the thing for me. The fellowship and the message that was given and singing in the choir and singing the solos and really listening to the words that you were singing and seeing how it affected people was huge for me. — DeLisha Milton-Jones

Corina Bartra is a very intriguing singer. On Son Zumbon ... the music utilizes tricky rhythms, the leader's haunting voice, and plenty of short solos. There is no lack on intensity in this program. — Scott Yanow

I don't like piano solos. — Warren Zevon

I would just like to say that Ritchie Blackmore did a bunch of great stuff guitar - wise. I'm happy to play the solo from 'Highway Star'. I always thought it was one of the most exciting guitar solos I'd ever played ... — Steve Morse

Not that I play guitar anywhere near as well as she sings, but I think I have always had a tendency to play solos the same way, in emotional relation to the structure of the song. I choose simple lines, and only play what seems emotionally relevant, and often express that emotion in time, that is in play or resistance to the set time of the song. — Matthew Zapruder

I'm sure if Shakespear were alive today, he'd be doing classic guitar solos on YouTube" -Peter Capaldi. — HTeBooks

Once you sophisticate the in-betweens, your blacks and whites can take their solos and shine. — Sara Genn

rockabilly, solos, which used very few notes, mainly double stops (that is two notes at once) and were primarily — Damien Peters

It's quite similar to guitar solos, only with programming you have to use your brain. The most important thing is that it should have some emotional effect on me, rather than just, 'Oh, that's really clever.' — Richard D. James

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do. — David Gilmour

My solos are more tastefully conceived now. But I still get going in places. It's just that I build up to it now. I don't race off on a solo. I take my time. — Alvin Lee