Ballad Soloing #3 - classic rock phrasing

Welcome to the Ballad Soloing lesson #3 !

This time we'll take a look at some classic rock inspired soloing. Classic rock is a genre that has a most visible influence, taken from blues. That's why you'll notice harmonic content to be simple and whole fun being hidden in a blues-rock dynamics and feel. Aside from final two licks that sound tircky because of the speed, we have something much more important in this lesson. It's the way of shaping the tone with our hands, while using low gain level. Tone is a plexi-based crunch. Bright and crystal, perfect for a strat neck pickup. It demands quite huge picking strength to get enough of sustain and that specific, blues-rock bite. While the notes are nothing fancy, the control of dynamics and articulation is the key to success.


Gear used (in order of connection chain placement):

1. SX SST57 guitar
2. Presonus Inspire 1394 firewire audio interface (input gain 40%)
3. Poulin LeXtac vst plug-in:
- Channel - blue
- Input 50%
- Gain 70%
- Pre EQ - brighter
- Bass 50%
- Middle 40%
- Treble 50%
- Contour 100%
4. Kefir impulse loader (mix 100%)
5. Impulse - Catharsis s-preshigh

Tuning - Standard E

Backing track progression:

4/4
||: A | F | G | D9/F#| A | E7#5/G# | G | D9/F#| :||
||: A | F | G | D9/F#| A | E7#5/G# | G | D9/F#| :||




Tempo: Main song tempo is 100 bpm. There are backing tracks available at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 bpm.

Time signature: 4/4

Scales used in this lesson:

A-mixolydian




A-dorian




A-minor




A-harmonic minor