Post by dioesque on May 28, 2011 0:12:51 GMT 3
Can anyone help me understand, musically speaking, what's going on in Ritchie's solo in "Gates of Babylon"? Enough so that I would be able to improvise my own solo over all those weird chords going on?
Specifically, it's the second half of that solo that I'm trying to comprehend, from a music theory sort of perspective (at least enough so that I know what to play when soloing there myself).
The first half of the solo I get; that's just jamming pretty much over a more-or-less straight pedal tone in E. But the second half of the solo just goes wild -- the rhythm backing parts are not just in E, but all these different strange chords (diminished, augmented, etc).
That's the part where I get lost. I have no idea what to do there. See, I typically do not learn recorded solos note for note; I prefer to always improvise my own solos, even when playing cover tunes. (Ritchie never plays the same solo twice, nor plays his own studio solos when live onstage, so I tend to do the same.)
Improvising my own solos is easy enough, when you know what key a song is in (or at least the key of the backing tracks for the solo part). But this crazy second half of the "Gates of Babylon" solo has me at a loss. I have no idea what key that part is in -- or if it even has one single key -- so I don't quite know what key (or scale) to base my own improvised solo upon.
Is there anyone out there who maybe plays "Gates of Babylon" in their own band, and who does not simply copy Ritchie's recorded studio solo note for note, but who instead improvises their own solo? If so, what the heck do you do? What do you base your own improv solo on? What key is that passage in? What scale(s) do you use there?
Help!
Specifically, it's the second half of that solo that I'm trying to comprehend, from a music theory sort of perspective (at least enough so that I know what to play when soloing there myself).
The first half of the solo I get; that's just jamming pretty much over a more-or-less straight pedal tone in E. But the second half of the solo just goes wild -- the rhythm backing parts are not just in E, but all these different strange chords (diminished, augmented, etc).
That's the part where I get lost. I have no idea what to do there. See, I typically do not learn recorded solos note for note; I prefer to always improvise my own solos, even when playing cover tunes. (Ritchie never plays the same solo twice, nor plays his own studio solos when live onstage, so I tend to do the same.)
Improvising my own solos is easy enough, when you know what key a song is in (or at least the key of the backing tracks for the solo part). But this crazy second half of the "Gates of Babylon" solo has me at a loss. I have no idea what key that part is in -- or if it even has one single key -- so I don't quite know what key (or scale) to base my own improvised solo upon.
Is there anyone out there who maybe plays "Gates of Babylon" in their own band, and who does not simply copy Ritchie's recorded studio solo note for note, but who instead improvises their own solo? If so, what the heck do you do? What do you base your own improv solo on? What key is that passage in? What scale(s) do you use there?
Help!
