Are Guitar Solos Even Cool Anymore?

The reason I bring up our beloved ‘Guitar Solo’ is a lot of Electric Guitar’s publicity came from the ‘Guitar God’. Images of Hendrix with his eyes shut, leaning backwards whilst in the middle of what might have been a liquid hot burning solo are not only etched into guitarists minds around the world, but that of the public masses. The Guitarist was a ‘God’ like figure, able to conjure up emotive chaos. Fast forward through the 70s and 80s, as technology and technique became more refined, so did the guitar solos, fast and slow! Then in the 90s, the Grunge scene apparently killed a lot of the virtuosic rock/metal/pop going on at the time. Did this kill the Guitar God? Whilst this may be partly true, Guitar has always been a tool in music. It’s easy to forget about the players who play great ‘rhythm’ guitar, over the years rhythm and lead interweaving seamlessly.

In the advent of social media, early YouTube was full of guitar solo covers, shredders, high level of technique, there was a resurgence of the guitar solo, this time not on CD players, but on screens. We can not only hear what these virtuosos are doing with no limits to access, but we can see it. Now as social media became more refined, the more ‘particular’ guitarists got, pushing the level even further. As a lecturer of Music, every year I’m greeted with a new class of 30 or so students, all diverse in influence, with a whole world of knowledge and music available to them through places like YouTube. But generally, they are overwhelmed of even where to focus in their own journey. Like all humans, we need guidance from people who have trodden these paths before and then we need to take that knowledge and find our own paths. But there are so many paths and with everyone telling each other what the best path is, we can’t hear our own truth.

In conversations with many professional guitarists who have been around a while. The opinion seems to come back to ‘everyone sounds the same’. We’ve been so exposed to 10,000s of repetitions of classic and modern solos, so many styles in one solo. It would make sense as the exposure to social media trends often pushes the budding guitar player trying to ‘make it’ into a style that they might not even enjoy. The result is lots of ear dazzling, jaw dropping displays of technique, tone and even so called taste/feel. People doing crazy things just to get noticed, but within a refined 60 second video, all prepped, all designed to gain an audience. The result is lots of guitarists who can play in very fixed parameters that aren’t even their own.

There is no search, there is no aliveness. There is just repetition. This repetition numbs our senses. The students trying to find their path are blinded by the dazzling amount of information out there, the hobbyist has to navigate a rough sea of false information, fake videos and insincere tuition.

I’m not a stickler for ‘things aren’t the way they used to be’. I am in love with what some modern guitarists are doing, but it’s not about solos, its not about their craft. It’s about their intention, where they are coming from. Are they creating something or are they repeating something. When I say repeat, I don’t mean literally repeating ‘a lick’ from another artist, there are only so many licks and scales we can learn before we realise the real magic is in the intention and imagination, which some of that information comes through, or doesn’t. Eddie Van Halen had such joy in his playing, he sounded excited to play guitar. Holdsworth had a melancholy sense of searching in his playing, expressing the unknown vastness of infinity. Lindsey Buckingham had a fiery intensity to his playing that was a mirror of his mind. Part of the reason I feel that Extreme’s ‘Rise’ Single got so much attention is because Nuno embodied his full being into that solo, it wasn’t an additional thing, it was part of a musical work, it was needed, it had some interesting things going on, it wasn’t a ‘presentation’ of guitar. It was alive.

It’s even prevalent in the now popular world of the would be ‘session guitarist’ even though this is romantic, based on the idea of LA in the 80s. The modern session player isn’t quite the same as this. The reality is totally different. Leading lots of budding musicians into cul-de-sacs of being ‘appropriate’ musicians, being safe, having learnt everything to get the job. The truth is, the players who get the sessions have the passion in the first place, they sounded like themselves, they followed their curiosity which leads to a more grounded musicianship. But then this grounded musicianship has been turned into a ‘method’ that can be packaged, learnt and practiced and there’s a certain way of being etc. Its great that this info is available, but often at the expense of the students own journey. No wonder so many musicians burn out! All these ideals, it’s a lot to remember!

Guitar is a tool in music, it’s a typewriter, there are different tools to create music as well. There’s amazing guitar everywhere, but it’s not necessarily in the solos or the presentations of technique. It’s in the real alive, breathing music. Even the simplest parts at the right time make the biggest impact. The less I think of myself as a Guitarist, the more of a Musician I become. It’s a piece of wood with strings, you can approach it how you want! You’re allowed. There are no Guitar Gods going to come down and strike you for not properly interpreting a classic blues lick. If you love something, learn it, create with it, do that thing. Don’t let others tell you what you can and can’t do with your playing (including me in this rant blog post!) but practice open mindedness, humility and learn. Forget who you are to find out who you really are.