Locomotive Breath- Guitar Solo Introduction

Tom-

Hello! I've been working on the tutorial Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull for a few weeks now; the guitar intro has been the most challenging to master by far. Piece by piece, one musical phrase at a time per evening, slowly I put together some resemblance of the entire guitar solo over a week and a half period. [br] [br] What's giving me a problem is executing the musical phrases involving triplets at tempo of song 124 bpm, that would mean the triplets played at a rate of 372 bpm. That's pretty fast and too fast for my abilities to perform at all.[br] [br] I found a pretty good Youtube file of song that I use to practice and adjust speed between 0.5 and 1.0. To my knowledge Guitar Tricks does not have that option to incrementally adjust speed between 0.5 and 1.0. So this is the tool I'm trying to practice the solo. Also there must a "special technique" to work and develop solo playing skills up to bpm other than practice, practice, practice. I feel frustrated faltering on solo now say at even 75% of bpm. Been playing guitar about six years now. [br] [br] Please advise on special techniques for working on solos. Appreciate any input, attached link of 432Hz recording, best file I could find online for clarity and hearing guitar.

Thanks,

Tony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8XstPPtfw

Hey Tony, I have also struggled with the intro solo. It's taken me two weeks to get to where I can play it reasonably (to my learner standards) . This is in part due to my inexperience (only been learning guitar for about 8 months) and partly due to trying to learn and practice after work when I am mentally jaded. I struggled with what seemed to be a fairly simple pentatonic progression even at slow tempo. Then I had a weekend when it rained heavily, I was forced indoors and decided to get serious. All of a sudden it clicked and I found I could get through it.

It's by no means perfect, and probably still a little slow (haven't played with the performance track yet, only with the "slower" version at the end of the tutorial).

For me, it's just great to have made progress with this. The answer for me has been practice, proper practice with a clear head, and more practice.

The loop system has had a work out too. Loop phrases and play them over and over gradually adding more phrases as progress is made.

Well, that's worked for me. I think this song is doable for me at my level of skill, but not easy.

Stick with it!!!! Great song. I am now really enjoying the power chord verses. Fun after grafting away at the intro solo!!!.

alffvdh

Hi! Appreciate your input, some of your techniques I'm implementing, will be working on the solo tonight. I guess, it's just a simple matter of sticking things out and the looping method is a great tool. We'll see what Tom has to say on top.

Thanks![br][br]Tony

Hi Tony, sorry for the delay in response!

Yeah, those triplets are pretty fast! I think you are on the right track... praticing at slower bpms, then gradually increasing the bpm. Make sure that you are using alternate picking!

You can also practice scales and other triplet licks to help get in the zone. This is a challenging solo, but your hard work will pay off and apply to other solos as well!

Good luck, Tom :)

Tom, thanks for the advise, so it's just a matter of accepting slow increasing progress on the guitar intro to work up to the standard tempo bpm. Super great lesson by the way and I may add done accurately, bravo!! There are so much poor quality/inaccurate transcriptions done on classic songs like this on websites like Ultimate Guitar and others, I'm starting to ignore them.

Have a great day!

Tony