Solo #3: Loving You On My Mind and the Art of Playing Pretty

This week I learned and recorded the solo to “Loving You On My Mind” by Chris Stapleton. I used the live version he performed on The Jennifer Hudson show.

The first time I heard the song I remember thinking “I’m going to learn and steal every lick in this song”.

His phrasing, note placement, and dynamics immediately drew me in.

The solo is played over a Dmaj7 to Amaj7 progression, and ends with a measure of Bm7 to E. The way the solo sites over the chord progression makes it only 7 bars long, which is unusual and made me second-guess my transcription a few times.

The three main things I focused on during this solo were memorization, dynamics, and phrasing.

Memorize First, Feel Second

I wanted to memorize the solo because I didn’t want to be thinking about the notes while also trying to focus on feel. This solo is less about the notes themselves and more about the emotion behind them. In order to do that well, I like to memorize the solo first.

I’ve been memorizing pieces since my classical guitar days in college. I would spend hours working through long pieces of my repertoire and committing them to memory.

This solo is obviously much shorter, but the process I use is basically the same.

First, I get the notes under my fingers.

Then I play the solo at tempo while reading the music.

After that, I start at the first bar and play as much as I can from memory.

When I come to a section I can’t remember, I stop, look over the notes, and play through that transition a few times. Then I go back to the beginning and try again.

Starting over at the beginning is important because it forces your brain to connect all the sections into one continuous piece instead of memorizing a collection of isolated fragments.

Make It Sound Like a Conversation

Once I had the solo memorized, I started working on dynamics and phrasing.

I wanted it to sound like a conversation between two people. If I imagined two people whispering about their love to each other, what would it sound like?

Ebbs and flows in volume. Some phrases softer and other louder.

And smearing notes. To get the vocal quality I was looking for, I incorporated what Tom Bukovac calls the smear. Smearing one note into another with a quick slide up or down the neck. To my ears, it gives the notes a real vocal quality.

The solo ends on the Bm7 to E and follows the chord tones to finish it off.

A Little Modulation

For tone, there is a slight phaser or flanger effect on the original performance.

I added just a hint of flanger from my Wampler Terraform to get close to that sound.

I dialed it way back because I don’t like it when the flanger is overpowering and makes the guitar sound like an airplane flying overhead. Less is more in this case.

I think I will try experimenting more subtle modulation in some of my solos though. It does add some nice space to the overall mix.

Play It Pretty

If I had to some up this solo in a few words, it would be:

Play it pretty.

I heard Albert King say that on one of the tracks from “Born Under A Bad Sign”, and it has stuck with me ever since.

At the end of the day, you want people to feel something.

What I Learned This Week

• Practice memorization. Memorizing a solo is a skill in itself, and the more you do it, the better you get at it. That will give you more mental space for phrasing and dynamics.
• Have a conversation. Imagine your solo as a conversation between two people and see how it changes the way you play.
• Play it pretty. Technical ability matters, but the goal is still to make the listener feel something.

Three solos down. 49 to go.

See you next week!