A Killer Solo a Week for a Year

Ted Nuget – Stranglehold – guitar solo

killersolos — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:54:08 +0000

After essentially terminating the killer solos project, I took on one of the guitar solos in Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold just for fun. I think it came out really well. I also enjoyed it because Ted loves synthesizers so much.

So I’ve decided to resurrect the project. I did 32 solos in 33 weeks. I am now committing to do 52 solos total, but not in 52 weeks. I expect to complete one about every two to four weeks until I reach the total.

This one I was particularly satisfying, and it didn’t take long either. My transcription and playing chops have come up a lot. Also I am listening a lot more closely to the parts, another of the skills I have grown from doing the project.

OK so here it is, Ted in the center, me panned somewhat to the right, one of the killer solos from Stranglehold…

Utopia – Hiroshima – synth solo

killersolos — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:42:35 +0000

This week I revisit Utopia’s Ra album, from which I previously recorded the killer solo of Sunburst Finish. Though the record was not a huge commercial success, it remains one of my favorite if not my most favorite Utopia album.

Hiroshima has a monster keyboard solo, with back-and-forth interplay between keyboardist Roger Powell and guitarist Todd Rundgren. It’s devilishly fast and includes a number of synthesizer techniques not so easily attained on modern keyboards. (I think he is turning a knob on a voltage controlled oscilator (VCO) at multiple points and he’s definitely using a low frequency oscillator at a much higher frequency than normal (around 35 Hz) and with a square wave instead of the usual sine wave.) However, I have, in my opinion, faithfully reproduced both the notes and the sounds.

This is a solo I never thought I would be able to play… and now I can. With this solo I consider the killer solos project to be complete — although I have not done a complete year of solos, I have achieved everything else that I set out to achieve. There are no solos in the queue that I am eager to take on — I have played all the ones I had in mind when I started with the project and quite a few more… more than 30, in fact. The project is now impacting important collaborations, which is where I’m headed next, and so it is time to move on.

I may visit and blog from time to time, and I may even resume the project at some point, but I have no firm plans to do so at this time. (I will continue to read and respond to comments.) So here is the final killer solo… please enjoy synth virtuoso Roger Powell mostly on the left, and me mostly on the right, doubling the killer synthesizer solo from Utopia’s Hiroshima…

(Buy the original at iTunes, Amazon.)

Ramsey Lewis – Look-A-Here

killersolos — Wed, 05 May 2010 01:03:12 +0000

Back in the days before all the radio stations were bought up by a media oligopoloy and standardized to a handful of formats (and then blind-sided by the iPod), you could hear all sorts of cool stuff that could never get airtime today. Case in point, WSDM FM in Chicago, “The Station With The Girls”, put several tunes off of Ramsey Lewis Newly Recorded All-Time, Non-Stop Golden Hits into rotation when I was a kid, triggering my acquiring and wearing out the album and a big jump in my love of funky keyboards.

Over the years I dug further into Ramsey’s back catalog. Although he’s very much jazz for decades, he still brings the funk. I particularly love his older stuff, his funky piano playing, his 60s hits, and many of the beautiful tunes he made crossing many genres before his breakout hits in the 60s.

…which brings me to Look-A-Here. I’ve dated the song to 1963 or earlier, which would make him at most 28 when he recorded it. I can’t get enough of this song. It has about infinite relistenability for me. I love the song, and you’ve probably never heard of it, and that’s OK.

It’s a piano solo for the whole song, more than three minutes, so here I present the entire song with me playing along with Ramsey. I think it’s pretty close.

(Buy the original… iTunes, Amazon.)

Hold Your Head Up – organ solo

killersolos — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:32:17 +0000

We visited the incredible keyboard playing of Rod Argent back in December when I recorded the killer solo from the Zombies Time of the Season. After the Zombies disbanded in 1968, Rod Argent formed the eponomously named group, Argent. (I used the word correctly — look it up!). Their third album, All Together Now, released in 1972, struck gold, literally, selling over a million records and catapulting Hold Your Head Up to #5 in the US.

I have loved this solo since the first time I heard it. It was a good bit of work. It’s extremely fast and at times bluesy but very atonal and it moves around in novel ways. I like how it seems like it’s almost going to end and then it turns and builds again, and again, and again. All right, so here we go… Rod in the left channel, me in the right, please enjoy the killer solo from Hold Your Head Up.

(Purchase the original on Amazon, iTunes.)

What’s Going On Here – piano solo

killersolos — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:05:19 +0000

What’s Going On Here is a song on Deep Purple’s 1974 album, Burn. It has a killer Jon Lord solo, but something of a departure for Jon, it’s a piano solo. (I’ve done some other Deep Purple solos… Lazy and Highway Star.)

It’s a cool solo. It’s really fun to play. I like the style.

OK, here we go. Jon Lord mostly in the left channel, yours truly mostly in the right, the killer piano solo from What’s Going On Here.

(Purchase the original on iTunes, Amazon.)

Head East – Never Been Any Reason synth solo

killersolos — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:21:21 +0000

Never Been Any Reason was a big hit for Head East. Although another song of theirs, Love Me Tonight, charted higher, Never Been Any Reason continues to be a staple on classic rock stations more than thirty years after its release.

The synth solo was played by Roger Boyd, a founding member who has been the band’s keyboardist and leader for forty years. An interesting aside, in 2005 he completed his doctorate degree in public policy studies and is now an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, a town we used to go to to get drunk when I lived in Indiana and the drinking age was 19 in Illinois. Or was that Carbondale. (Actually it was Marshall but we did road trip to SIU a couple times.)

This solo was tricky. It’s a duet, or more likely, a couple of takes that were mixed together. I just did one of them. The solo sounds simple, and mostly it is, but it’s pretty quiet in the mix at points so it’s hard to dig the notes out even using EQ and panning to try to help isolate the notes. So this is more of a guess in places than usual.

I should also say that I’m considering putting the project on hiatus. There is a ton of stuff to work on, and this has started to interfere. Also it’s getting harder to find iconic solos to do.

But for now, here’s Roger Boyd mostly in the left channel, me mostly in the right, the killer solo from Head East’s Never Been Any Reason…

(Purchase the song on iTunes, Amazon.)

Walk the Dinosaur – synth solo

killersolos — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:57:54 +0000

I really like Was (Not Was). Walk the Dinosaur was their first hit, reaching top ten status in the US and UK in the late 1980s. It includes a funky keyboard solo with some unexpected jazzy turns. I wasn’t able to find out who played the original version.

It’s kind of an organ sound, kind of a synth sound. It was in the 80s, so I’m going to mark it as a synth sound.

I had learned this solo many years ago. It took several days. This time was quicker. I’m not 100% sure about a few of the notes, but most of it is note-for-note. There’s a weird jump in volume in a couple notes that I gave up trying to resolve. I suspect it’s actually a problem with the synth patch because the note velocities look fine.

Here then, please enjoy, the original in the left channel (mostly) and me in the right (mostly), the killer synth solo from Walk the Dinosaur…

(Purchase/preview the original at Amazon, not available on iTunes at this time. By the way, the band is still actively recording.)

OutKast – Roses – piano solo – with sheet music

killersolos — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:57:47 +0000

A snappy little number is the ten bar piano intro to the OutKast song Roses.

Here I am panned pretty far left and the soloist, no luck figuring out who it was so far, panned pretty far right.

Included is sheet music for the piece. I’m not claiming 100% accuracy, but it’s pretty close.

As a side note, this is solo number 26… the killer solos project is one half complete.

Roses Piano Solo Score (pdf)

Sugarloaf – Green-Eyed Lady – organ solo

killersolos — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:00:41 +0000

I find it fairly amazing that Green-Eyed Lady was released in 1970. The drums are mixed really forward and with very light reverb. It has a very clicky and open sound that still sounds fresh forty years later, which may be part of the reason why the song is still in rotation on every classic rock station in America.

There’s not a lot of info about Sugarloaf on the Internet. Their website is down (but sort of cached on Google). The song on iTunes is listed as being by “Jerry Corbetta formerly of Sugarloaf”, hinting at legal action around the demise of the band. Corbetta was the singer and keyboardist, turns out, and after Sugarloaf was in Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, co-wrote the Grace Jones hit “On Your Knees”, wrote a hit for Roberta Flack, and later joined the Four Seasons.

What was hard about this: Once again, some very very fast licks. Also the solo is fairly long at 25 measures. What was easy about it: A number of repeated figures. Something extra I liked about it: Some subtle riffing on the main lick.

Here we go then, Jerry Corbetta mostly in the right channel, me mostly in the left, doubling the killer organ solo from Green Eyed Lady…

(Purchase the song on Amazon, iTunes.)
PS – I posted the sheet music for Call Me The Breeze based on my transcription.

Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein – synth solo

killersolos — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:02:06 +0000

They weren’t even planning to include Frankenstein on Edgar Winter Group’s They Only Come Out At Night. The only instrumental song on the record, it was included as a lark, and released as a B-side to the single Hangin’ Around. Fans clamored for the B-side, and DJs quickly responded, sending Frankenstein to number one in May of 1973.

What was hard about this: Edgar Winter is just unbelievably fast. Also I don’t have an ARP 2600 synthesizer; I used one of Logic Studio’s virtual synths, the ES2. I feel like I got the sound pretty close, which took a good bit of fiddling. Also wah pedal. Also turning knobs (glide for instance) while playing. Old school.

Here, then, with Edgar mostly in the right channel and me mostly in the left, the killer synthesizer solo from Frankenstein.