Building a Solo
Two soloists play over the same changes, same tempo, same band. One holds the room for three minutes and the other loses you after twenty seconds. Usually that is not about the notes. It is about the order they arrive in and what sits between them.
- 1 idea
- 5 controls
- one climax
At which level
- Intermediate to advanced
- Any instrument
In short
A listener cannot remember separate events, only relationships. As soon as something returns, or is clearly different from what came before, structure appears and the ear can follow. Without those relationships there are only notes, and then there is nothing to wait for.
The controls are register, density, rhythmic activity, dynamics and how far outside the harmony you go. You do not operate all of them at once, and you should not: moving one at a time is what makes the arc legible.
How you practise it
Motivic development is the strongest tool and the least used. One idea, repeated, sequenced, inverted, fragmented, is enough for an entire chorus and gives the listener something to recognise. Place the climax late, in the last third, and leave space before it. A phrase that ends is worth more than one that trails off, because an ending is what lets the next one begin.
Where you run into this
- A solo you can hum afterwards, which almost always means one idea returned
- A climax that lands because the twenty seconds before it were quiet
- A player who stops in the right places
Our own examples
One set of changes here, so you can play a chorus that develops a single figure and then one that does not. The difference is not subtle and it is entirely within your control.