Musical People Needed!

[Trawgdor]

Musical People Needed!

Hiya all. This is my shabby attempt at a sweep-shred guitar solo. Feedback and constructive criticism is needed!

It's a little blurry.

Spoiler

Oh, and I have a couple questions:

What key would these notes (the ones that make up the solo) be in?
A# F C# G# D#

I think it would be a minor scale but I have no clue.

If I were to write an entire song around this little piece, it would be in the same key as [Answer to Q1] correct?

I'll upload me playing it as soon as I figure out how...

 

[Purple Nurple]

Re: Musical People Needed!

Yeah, it would sound good in an A sharp Aeolian scale.

I wouldn't personally write an entire song in just one scale - changing it up a bit creates better variety and stops the song from becoming too repetetive. Perhaps a change to the relative major, or to the dominant?

Now for my opinion: I really don't like shred music. More often than not it's just four or five notes repeated over and over again, showing little creativity and musical talent. So yeah, I would change the scale. Modulations at least keep the song from becoming too boring, but personally if you were going to use that shred-lick, I'd only use it once or twice.

 

[Trawgdor]

Re: Musical People Needed!

Yeah, I was thinking nothing like Malmsteen or anything, just use it for a little piece in the solo probably.

I'm not a very studied musical person, but different scales can be in the same key, correct? How would I build riffs and what not around the same key?

 

[Purple Nurple]

Re: Musical People Needed!

Ah, yes. The key refers to the tonic note (first note in a scale), in this case it's the 6th fret, which is A sharp. The riff is in a minor scale, so the riff is in A sharp Aeolian. To write a solo in a different scale you should keep it in the same key. Alternate scales could include the relative major (C sharp major in this case). Or you could modulate the scale to the dominant, which is the fifth note in the scale, which is E sharp minor in this case. Basically, if you want to keep the song sounding darker, chage it to E sharp minor, whereas if you want it to change completely, and sound major C sharp major. Or you could write stuff in A sharp blues scale/ pentatonic. A plusside of this is that it includes the flattened fifth note which has a particularly 'dark' side. (The flattened fifth is also known as the 'Devils interval'.)

The fifth note (Dominant) is the second note in a power-chord - it is two frets up, and one string higher. In this case it's E sharp minor.
The relative major is found by moving the scale up three frets and changing to a major scale - in this case it is C sharp Dorian (Dorian and Aeolian are modes - natural major and minor, respectively.)
The blues/pentatonic isthe most basic scale there is. The pentatonic scale only has five notes while the blues adds the flattened fifth, which is great for metal and blues cause it gives a "dark" tone to the music.

^ All of these above scales would be good for writing riffs in, but I can't choose one for you cause I don't know what you want your song to be.