"All Alone" Solo Excerpts

Welcome back! In this lesson I will show you a way I like to approach soloing. One of the ways is to solo over the chord changes, instead of just playing key centers. A lot of rock players may just play one scale over the whole progression. I like to play over each chord and embellish them with more colorful harmonies, instead of just playing the same notes of the chords.

For this lesson, I will just be showing you a short excerpt from the latest album, “The Fire Within”. The song is called “All Alone”, which is a balled based in the key of D minor and we will focus on just a short clips of the solo. The solo is fairly long on the track and If you can listen to the whole thing that would be great.

Example 1 is the section of the solo happening around (3:35). The chord behind this section is a Csus2 and on the very first beat I’m descending down a C Mixolydian mode (C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb) and a C Major 7th arpeggio (C, E, G, B), played with string skipping. I play this arpeggio with legato for a more flowing type sound and you could also pick each note. On the last beat of this section, I climb down an A Phrygian Dominant mode (A, Bb, C#, D, E, F, G) to set up the next chord change, which is an A7.

MP3 - All Alone - Example 1
MP3 - All Alone (slow) - Example 1

Example 2 is the section of the solo walking up to the chorus, it is at (3:56) and it is a series of chords moving in half steps. This first section is a B flat Major 7 arpeggio, (Bb, D, F, A) with string skipping. This arpeggio is played with a more legato style with right hand taping. I’m tapping the octave, Bb and the 3rd, D on the high E string. Then it descends down the Bb Lydian scale and resolves on the 9th, C.

MP3 - All Alone - Example 2
MP3 - All Alone (slow) - Example 2

The next arpeggio is a B min7th (b5), (B, D, F, A). This one is string skipped like the previous arpeggio. The notes ascending are played on the 5th, 3rd and high E strings. For this arpeggio, I’m tapping the octave B and pulling off to the A note and then it moves down the arpeggio very quickly.

That is it for now! Be sure to pick up the new album, “The Fire Within” and visit www.mikecampese.com for more information, to purchase CDs and all merchandise.