Week 14: motif and development
Week fourteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: stating one short idea and varying it, so a solo grows from a seed instead of wandering.
- Week
- 14 of 32
- Days
- 7
- Played as
- blues or rock
This week is nearly identical in both tracks, because the craft behind a memorable solo does not care about idiom: do a great deal with very little. State a short idea — three or four notes with a distinctive rhythm — then keep returning to it, changed.
The levers are few and all effective: play it again over a different chord, keep the rhythm and change the pitches, keep the pitches and change the rhythm, move it an octave, play it harder. Most players own more vocabulary than they can organise, and this is the organising principle.
Blues treatment
Motif and development: state one idea, then vary it, so a solo grows from a single seed
The craft behind a memorable solo is almost always doing a great deal with very little. State a short idea — three or four notes with a distinctive rhythm — and then keep returning to it, changed.
There are only a few levers and they all work: play it again on a different chord, change its rhythm and keep its pitches, keep its rhythm and change its pitches, move it an octave, play it louder. Most players own more vocabulary than they can organise, and this is the organising principle. It is also what makes a solo quotable, which is what people mean when they say a solo is memorable.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands + hear an idea4 min
- State a motifOne short idea4 min
- Develop the motifSame idea, varied6 min
- One motif over the formDevelop through the changes6 min
- Jam, develop one ideaPut it together5 min
Check yourself
- Play a chorus built from one motif and nothing else, varied at least four ways.
- Can you hum your motif away from the guitar an hour later?
- Record it and check: would a listener recognise the same idea returning?
Reference
Rock treatment
Motif and development: state one idea and vary it so a solo grows from a single seed
The difference between a solo people remember and a solo people endure is usually that the first one had an idea in it. State a short motif — three or four notes with a distinctive rhythm — and then develop it rather than abandoning it.
The levers are few and all effective: repeat it on a different chord, keep the rhythm and change the pitches, keep the pitches and change the rhythm, move it an octave, play it harder. This is especially worth doing in rock, where the temptation and the technical ability to simply run fast is strongest. Speed without an idea is just noise delivered promptly.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands + hear an idea4 min
- State a motifOne short idea4 min
- Develop the motifSame idea, varied6 min
- One motif over the vampDevelop through the changes6 min
- Jam, develop one ideaPut it together5 min
Check yourself
- Play a chorus built from one motif, varied at least four ways.
- Can you hum the motif an hour later, away from the guitar?
- Record it — would a listener recognise the idea coming back?
Reference
How the week runs
Whichever accent you pick, the material stays the same for all 7 days and the tempo and intent move. Day one takes it slowly, day two chases clean notes, day three brings it to target tempo and into the jam, day four pushes past comfortable, and day five drops back to tempo to record and listen. Days six and seven are yours.
You can switch accent any day without losing your place — it is the same week either way, so week 14 means the same thing in both.