Blowing in the wind in Before the flood (Robbie solo)

In general, I have never felt the desire to copy a guitar solo note-for-note. I always like doing my own thing.

This is the exception (between 2:00 and 2:48):

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I consider this to be Robbie's best guitar solo EVER!! But for the life of me, I cannot figure out what he's doing! :-(

Does anyone happen to have a tab for it? Even just a few lines here and there would help! I have worked out some of the very basic double stops, but I am at a complete loss as to everything else. It's 48 seconds of heaven and hell for me!

He's mostly playing double stops from the major scale and maj pentatonic /maj scale licks. A couple brief visits to min. pent. It's very straight forward. I think the double stops might be throwing you.

Begin with these double stops and I think you'll soon figure it out.

G

10
12
x
x
x
x

C

12
13
x
x
x
x

D

14
15
x
x
x
x

These are the basic double stop shapes he's using. From these basic shapes and knowing the G major scale you should be able to figure out the rest.

Thanks Boney.

Yep... that's the part I had kind of figured out. It's probably the visits to the min pent that confused me... I had stuck to the major. I'll try that!

I suspect there are a lot of licks in there that I am just not familiar with at all. I have loved this guitar solo for MANY years, I just never felt the confidence to attack it. I think now is the time! ;-)

I suspect there are a lot of licks in there that I am just not familiar with at all. I have loved this guitar solo for MANY years, I just never felt the confidence to attack it. I think now is the time! ;-)

Well, if you learn it, you then have some new licks. :wink:

It sounds pretty basic, spend a couple hours with it and I'm sure you'll get it down.


Sounding like Robbie, on the other hand....not so easy, he has a unique touch.

I think that the main obstacle is that I do not have a 'good ear' for knowing what position of the neck is played. If you play a C on the 3rd fret of the A string and a C on the 8th fret of the low E string, they will sound absolutely the same to me.

Also, bends and pull-offs and slides confuse me.

Other than that... piece of cake!! :-P

But yeah, I do have the feeling that if I pull this off, I will have learnt a lot of useful stuff.

Edit: The only other leads I have worked out so far are Walk Don't Run, Apache, Albatros, Sleepwalk, and the solo from Let it be (with youtube help)... but this is a totally different beast for me.

HAH!! I just managed to substantially slow the track down without affecting the pitch!! Thank you 'Audacity'!!

This should help a lot!! :-)

In regards to hearing where on the neck something is being played you need to train your ear to hear the different auditory clues. For example the timbre or character of a note will change dramatically depending on where it's played. For example I'm pretty sure most of that solo of Robbie's is on the top three strings (mostly B and E strings I'd say) and he's just running up and down the neck to different positions. I only listened to the solo once but that's the sense my memory was left with. You can hear that the character of notes that are played on the higher strings (G, B, E) is pretty consistent throughout.

Also when you're listening to the solo you should be completely aware of what chord he's playing over at any given moment. This will help you hear/figure out what he's doing.

Know your major scales.

In regards to hearing where on the neck something is being played you need to train your ear to hear the different auditory clues. For example the timbre or character of a note will change dramatically depending on where it's played. For example I'm pretty sure most of that solo of Robbie's is on the top three strings (mostly B and E strings I'd say) and he's just running up and down the neck to different positions. I only listened to the solo once but that's the sense my memory was left with. You can hear that the character of notes that are played on the higher strings (G, B, E) is pretty consistent throughout.

Also when you're listening to the solo you should be completely aware of what chord he's playing over at any given moment. This will help you hear/figure out what he's doing.

Know your major scales.

That's extremely helpful! Thank you!!

I'm ok with the scale (all over the fretboard etc)... but I'm really not used to doing the reverse process (i.e. sound to fretboard)... transcribing this solo should be really good training for me.

That's extremely helpful! Thank you!!

I'm ok with the scale (all over the fretboard etc)... but I'm really not used to doing the reverse process (i.e. sound to fretboard)... transcribing this solo should be really good training for me.

I understand what you mean but truely it's not really the reverse process of anything. Ideally the reason that you practice scales all over the neck is so you train your musical memory to know where to get those sounds when you go looking for them. Why else practice scales? So you can post about it on guitar forums?:lol: I'm kidding. Sort of. But seriously, why practice anything if you're not commiting those sounds to memory. There's really no other point to it. The physical dexerity that results from practice is just the mechanism that your memory uses to pull the sounds out of the fretboard.

I understand what you mean but truely it's not really the reverse process of anything. Ideally the reason that you practice scales all over the neck is so you train your musical memory to know where to get those sounds when you go looking for them. Why else practice scales? So you can post about it on guitar forums?:lol: I'm kidding. Sort of. But seriously, why practice anything if you're not commiting those sounds to memory. There's really no other point to it. The physical dexerity that results from practice is just the mechanism that your memory uses to pull the sounds out of the fretboard.

Stop ruining my excuses!!! :mrgreen:

Yep... you have a point. And to be honest, although I do 'know' scales (on the fretboard pretty well too) I rarely practice them in isolation. I usually practice along jam tracks and I make sure I keep changing positions and I keep it varied (I also use the same track in different keys). I guess I need to persist more on the 'boring job' of going up and down. :roll:

Stop ruining my excuses!!! :mrgreen:

Yep... you have a point. And to be honest, although I do 'know' scales (on the fretboard pretty well too) I rarely practice them in isolation. I usually practice along jam tracks and I make sure I keep changing positions and I keep it varied (I also use the same track in different keys). I guess I need to persist more on the 'boring job' of going up and down. :roll:

I've been outside in the hot, hot sun on a ladder scraping and sanding our house, getting it ready for painting. My brains are a bit fried at the moment and my judgement may be poor so if I came off as scolding you in my last response I sure didn't mean it to be that way. :oops:

You know it doesn't really matter whether you use backing tracks or sit alone with a metronome or randomly plunk out notes as long as the sounds are being stored in your bio-computer. Mindfulness and attention are the key.

In my opinion that's what seperates the really truly great players from people like me. They input information (practicing scales etc, listening to music, jamming, teaching) and they retain it and know how to access it and where that lives on the instrument. A good computer metaphor would be appropriate right now. But it's all, every bit of it, dependant on memory.

So whether you practice with backing tracks or metronome or nothing it should be approached as memory training. You're teaching yourself to remember where those sounds live on the guitar.

No worries at all about coming across as scolding... I'm definitely not the hardest working learner around here! :-D
Actually, I was very 'stale' for quite a while until a year ago or so. For many years, I've been the 'busker' (Dylan fan with harmonica around my neck), or the rhythm/riff player/singer in bands... then I became the bass player. Funnily enough that's when I discovered soloing! So, after several years of feeling VERY comfortable with what I was doing (and learning little), I found myself a challenge. It has been very satisfying, but I certainly lack discipline and I rely a lot on old tricks to cover up weaknesses. I do need to get back to basics.

I like your memory/computer metaphor... I feel I have a lot of pieces that I need to bring together. Every once in a while, I have a small epiphany, but for some time now I have the feeling that I am very close to bringing everything together (in terms of organising information in my head) and getting a eureka moment. But I'm afraid there are no short-cuts to that! Still... for some reason, I am certain that working out this solo and sweating over it will be just the ticket to my next level of development.