30 - November Rain guitar solos (Guns N' Roses)

Slash's 3 beautiful solos! In the COLD November Rain...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today we're diving into November Rain, the three solos. So we'll start with the first two because they're connected. And after I go through the nuances of the lead guitar solo, we'll go over the chords. So you really and I'll sing the solo too so you can really see how the chords are really helping make the solo so beautiful. A lot of it has to do with the chords. Okay, here we go. So yes, I'm playing a strat because right now it's tuned to E flat standard, and I don't have a Gibson less Paul. But I think that the trick with the tone is uh a good amount of gain. Obviously, a martial amp helps. I'm using a black box 2.0 pedal with the gain turned considerably high, and the neck pickup is what's gonna give it like a nice round, warm, smooth lead tone. So it's like a lot of gain, but like rounded out with that nice neck pickup engaged. So let's go through it. I think it's one of Slash's most melodic solos, definitely. I love how much damage he does with just one fret. Like we're on the eighth fret right now, he's just like look at that, like so much there. I love the like the slides down. That right here. So that sounds so sweet because he's playing the major third of C. The song is in C major, but it's actually in B major because you know we're in E flat standard tuning because it's guns and roses, but it's the but it's the and the oh my god, just so legato, smooth connected notes. That's just like a typical pentatonic lick, right? But it's like perfectly placed. Right at the turn of the repeat, because it goes right back to now we got a melodic variation here. And then we go up. Love this bend, it's just like a rainbow, like no vibrato. He's just like and I love how he lets it come down, right? Just and he has all the vibrato there. Oh my god, just and then just working his way up, right? Right here. I love how he doesn't go. He's not picking everything, sometimes he bends up to it now, like this. Same thing up here, he doesn't go right, he goes and then the cascade down, just like pools of melody, pools of gold. Beautiful, still climbing down. This this next line has the most movement. Okay, so very slowly it's let me play it even slower. I love that sounds like a violin is playing it, right? And then he does that uh repeated melodic theme of the So slash, I feel like he does that all the time. And it's do you need some time, right? So right there he's like, he lets us sustain do all the work there. He goes, and then I love that, and then I'm gonna bring the game down a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

And then I love what he's Ooh, do you need some time just gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I'm gonna grab the acoustic now to show you the chords. So solo one has two chord progressions. We'll call it chord progression A and chord progression B. And they both end on the C major. We're in the key of C major, it's actually B major because we're in E flat standard tuning. We're tuned down a half step, but uh chord progression A starts on the four chord, helps give it like a lot of heaviness. Sounds like a flower, man. It's so beautiful when it lands on C. The D minor is a nice tension. The F is like the four chord, right? So it's like big and broad falls down to the minor tension. Nice release, major, beautiful floral release. Here's chord progression B. Satter, okay, we start on the D minor. It goes I feel like a trumpet could play this. Look at the C means right, it's so ha so like not happy, but it's like a beautiful like release.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Do you need some time?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

So it lands on the four. On your Look how heavy this is. Do ya need some time?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

It's so like grandiose on your own. Do you need some time? Just a four to five on your own.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Five chord build-up. Second solo starts. It starts on the four chord because we go back to chord progression A. Okay, so we'll jump to solo two now. So Slash is mirroring Axel, right? With the the charge up. So he's just outlining G7, the leading chord. This is the five chord. He's outlining that, okay? There's the dominant seven right there, the flat seven. The rest is just G major. And he lands on F, a high F, and here it's also F. But I love that he goes, and then I love that he doesn't go, he doesn't pick it, he doesn't go. Right, he lets it ring. And then this band is crazy, like no vibration. He doesn't go like or even like a little bit, he doesn't go He doesn't do that, he just shoots it like an arrow. So it's like this is great. Finally, some movement. So slash. I feel like that part is like so slash. Oh man, and it also lands on the F. So the uh chord progression A is present only in solo two, like it never goes to chord progression B for this second solo.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

When your fears subside and the shadows still remain.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

I love in the cold November rain. He has such a crazy, crazy unique voice, but it just like totally works. But let's move on to the third solo. This is the outro solo. So the whole song, let me grab the acoustic. The whole song's in C major, right? That's the key of the song. Again, E flat standard tuning though, right? So C major shape. Okay, so the cool thing about the ending is that when it finally ends, when you think the song ends, and then you hear Axel play that piano part, it's like right, so that's C minor now. He just goes to the parallel key. C minor, huge stark contrast from the rest of the song. But he makes a C minor seven, so instead of he does, he has that minor seven, it's just like cooler, like it's really nice. Right? On piano, right? And then to the sixth chord, A flat to B flat to root. It always sounds like it's charging up. It's like right. So just sounds really epic when you incorporate the six to the seven to the root. So it's like and then when it finally kicks in, right? You think that they would stay in that chord progression. They could have had a whole outro being like But they don't, like right when the whole band kicks in and the groove kicks in, and it's like the outro finally hits, they don't do that. They do this like beautiful passage of chords, and that's when you get the We're gonna dive into that, but this is what's going on with the chords. It's extra bar. It's so cool. Five measures of four instead of four measures of four.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Three. That's the fifth bar. Don't you think that you need somebody? Don't you think that you need somebody? Everybody needs somebody.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Those are those chords right there. The charge-up chords, like right before the outro heads. You're not the only one. Extra bar. You're not the only one. Okay, so if we're in proper C minor, that should be a G minor chord. That should be a minor five chord, but they do a major five chord. Happens a lot, it just adds like the harmonic minor sound. The major seventh. That's helping to make it that's helping to make it sound so classical. Cause the major five chord, really nice. Borrowed chord from C major, you can look at it like that. The minor four chord, but he's playing He's playing the major six of that chord. It sounds like a James Bond moment. Right? I love that chord. It makes it an F minor six chord. So root fifth octave minor third major six, but it's called F minor six. I love that. I love because we're doing the relative major of C minor. We're playing E flat major, right? But he's outlining a minor triad. He's outlining a C minor triad. Just like works really nicely there. Like over the relative major chord. I love that. Don't you think that you need some? Okay, let's get into the solo part. The trick with the sound here is the bridge pickup. Unlike the neck pickup, like the first two solos have, you want the bridge pickup, more gain, volume knob up, and I got a wall pedal, a dunlop crybaby wall parked halfway, maybe like more towards down, right? Because I want a piercing, like nasally sound, right? Just oh my god, that's the major seventh right there. That's the majority. That classical note. He's doing that thing again where he suddenly bends up to a note. He doesn't go right, he goes and then I love that. He doesn't go right, he goes He picks it first and then he bends it. Oh there's that minor triad, right? And I love this like the shredding moment in that, especially in that extra bar that they add. It just gives him more room to just like shred all over the place. Oh that little bend! Oh my god. I love that leg. I had to like listen to that isolated guitars on YouTube, and I like slowed it down like 50% to like really hear what he's doing there. It's so hypnotic, and then he does this, I kind of make up my own thing. It's very Randy Rhodes, right? I feel like he I feel like in the first two solos he's channeling his David Gilmore influence, and in this third solo, this outro, he's like really channeling Randy Rhodes. It's so haunting. It it sounds like Randy Rose. It could just go on forever, can't it? Hope you enjoyed digging into that with me. I had a lot of fun learning these three solos. I appreciate you tuning into Barracuda Breakdowns, and if you'd like to work with me one on one to develop your songs, produce your songs, and really hone your sound, check out my program where I'm working with artists directly, and that's at learn. I love to work with you one on one. Thanks again, and I'll see you in the next episode.