Guitar Solo, Guitar Solo

Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, rock, metal and jazz styles such as swing and jazz fusion. Guitar solos are also used in classical music forms such as chamber music and concertos.

The dramatic, amplified electric guitar solo has become a characteristic part of rock music. Guitar solos are often performed with electric guitar with a timbral effect known as distortion which makes the sound fuller and adds harmonic overtones. Since the 1960s and 1970s, electric guitarists often alter the sound of their guitar adding electronic guitar effects such as reverb or chorus.

The main formal features are therefore verse, chorus, and bridges. The guitar solo is usually the most significant instrumental (that is, non-vocal) section of a mainstream rock song. In other rock-related genres such as pop and dance music, the keyboard synthesizer usually plays this melodic role.

In the classic verse-chorus form it quite often falls between the second chorus and third verse. As well, extended guitar solos are sometimes used at the end of songs, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", Guns N' Roses's "November Rain", AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock", The Outlaws' "Green Grass and High Tides", and The Eagles's "Hotel California". Solos can also take place in the introduction of a song, such as in "Since I've Been Loving You", by Led Zeppelin and "Sweet Child O' Mine", by Guns 'N Roses.

During this time the use of techniques such as harmonics became more widely used. Later, guitarists who had developed considerable technical facility began to release albums which consisted only of guitar compositions. Guitar solos in popular music went out of fashion in the mid 1990s, coinciding with the rise in popularity of grunge and nu metal, neither of which feature guitar solos prominently. During this period, guitar solos became less prominent in many pop and popular rock music styles; either being trimmed down to a short four-bar transition, or omitted entirely, in a vast departure from the heavy-usage of solos in classic rock music from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In the 2000s, guitar solos have come back into fashion in heavy metal music. Classic rock revival music also heavily features soloing, along with classic rock bands that are still active, as of 2009.

Some genres use bass guitar solos in most songs, such as jazz bands or jazz fusion groups. Bass solos are also common in certain styles of punk music. In a rock context, bass guitar solos are structured and performed in a similar fashion as a rock guitar solo, often with the musical accompaniment from the verse or chorus sections. While bass guitar solos appear on few studio albums from rock or pop bands, genres such as progressive rock, fusion-influenced rock, and some types of heavy metal are more likely to include bass solos, both in studio albums and in live performances.

Source: Wikipedia > Guitar Solo