Signature solo: Am rock vamp

A composed eight-bar rock solo over the Am–G–F–G vamp: a singable hook, the ♭6 over the F, a legato build and one bent peak.

Style
rock
Written in
A
Length
8 bars
Feel
straight
Tempo
♩=126

Numbers are the order you play them, so notes sharing a number sound together. Drop the tempo until it is clean, then bring it back up. Each section has its own play button — learn them one at a time.

Written in A, and the writing below describes it there. Move it to another key and the shape does not change, only where its root sits — which is the difference between knowing a lick and knowing a fret number.

Bars 1-2: the hook

Simple enough to sing, which is the test of an opening. The whole-step bend in bar 1 is the hook's punctuation; everything after refers back to it.

  1. 1A · string 1, fret 5
  2. 2G · string 2, fret 8
  3. 3A · string 1, fret 5
  4. 4D · string 3, fret 7bend to fret 9
  5. 5A · string 1, fret 5
  6. 6G · string 2, fret 8
  7. 7E · string 2, fret 5
  8. 8D · string 3, fret 7
  9. 9C · string 3, fret 5
  10. 10A · string 4, fret 7vibrato

Bars 3-4: the ♭6 over the F

Bar 3 lands F on the B string as the F chord arrives — the ♭6 of A natural minor, the note that makes this sound dark rather than merely minor. It only works because the chord underneath has moved.

  1. 1A · string 4, fret 7
  2. 2C · string 3, fret 5
  3. 3D · string 3, fret 7
  4. 4F · string 2, fret 6vibrato
  5. 5E · string 2, fret 5
  6. 6G · string 2, fret 8
  7. 7A · string 1, fret 5
  8. 8C · string 1, fret 8
  9. 9A · string 1, fret 5vibrato

Bars 5-6: the legato build

Hammer-ons up, pull-offs down, one pick stroke per string, then a sequence in fours climbing to the top of the box. Volume, not speed, is what makes this section build.

  1. 1G · string 4, fret 5
  2. 2A · string 4, fret 7hammer-on
  3. 3C · string 3, fret 5
  4. 4D · string 3, fret 7hammer-on
  5. 5E · string 2, fret 5
  6. 6G · string 2, fret 8hammer-on
  7. 7A · string 1, fret 5
  8. 8C · string 1, fret 8hammer-on
  9. 9A · string 1, fret 5pull-off
  10. 10G · string 2, fret 8
  11. 11E · string 2, fret 5pull-off
  12. 12D · string 3, fret 7
  13. 13C · string 3, fret 5
  14. 14E · string 2, fret 5
  15. 15G · string 2, fret 8
  16. 16A · string 1, fret 5
  17. 17C · string 1, fret 8
  18. 18G · string 2, fret 8
  19. 19A · string 1, fret 5
  20. 20C · string 1, fret 8
  21. 21A · string 1, fret 5
  22. 22C · string 1, fret 8bend to fret 10

Bars 7-8: the peak and the drop

The high E at the 12th, then the whole thing falls back to the root. The release is the point: a solo that stays at the peak has not peaked.

  1. 1A · string 1, fret 5
  2. 2C · string 1, fret 8
  3. 3E · string 1, fret 12vibrato
  4. 4C · string 1, fret 8
  5. 5A · string 1, fret 5
  6. 6G · string 2, fret 8
  7. 7E · string 2, fret 5
  8. 8D · string 3, fret 7
  9. 9C · string 3, fret 5
  10. 10A · string 4, fret 7vibrato

Eight bars over two cycles of the Am–G–F–G vamp, fixed and memorised. Playing the same thing twice, deliberately, is a harder discipline than improvising and it exposes anything you were papering over.

It lives in box 1 at the 5th fret apart from two reaches: the F on the B string in bar 3, and the E at the 12th fret in bar 7. The F is there because the chord underneath moved, which is the whole argument of week 15; the E is there because a peak needs somewhere higher to go.

The vocabulary it uses

None of this is new material. Every phrase here is a lick from earlier in the path, arranged — which is the argument the piece exists to make: a solo is vocabulary in an order, not a separate talent.

Where this fits

This caps week 16 of the rock path — writing your own. Learn it fixed and from memory: playing the same thing twice on purpose is a harder discipline than improvising, and it is the one thing you finish the path able to show someone.

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