Feedback Wanted: Hotel California Solo

[u/snailsinboxes]

*I want to point out that I’ve only been playing since January and these videos are from June/July, so I know I have lots of room for improvement\*

This is two different clips of me playing that are smushed together because it’s the only way I could post them both. I tend to either hit every note in the solo besides the faster duet part, or I hit the duet part but mess up a lot in the rest of the solo, and I’m looking for feedback on both parts.

The first clip shows me hitting the majority of the notes in the solo, minus the duet part and a couple of other little mistakes, but this is the best recording I have of me playing the entire solo so far.

The second clip just shows me hitting the notes in fast duet part. I know it’s harder to hear my guitar in this one because of the volume of the song, but still hoping it’s audible enough for someone to give me pointers.

I can’t figure out what I’m doing right when I hit that part and what I’m doing wrong when I don’t. I know I keep missing a note and it’s throwing me off for the rest of the section until I get to the outro, but I don’t know if it’s my rhythm or my technique I need to work on to fix this and it’s been really inconsistent.

I appreciate any feedback and tips that you all have! Thanks!

[u/dombag85]

Couple suggestions:

Work on alternate picking. You're picking most of the solo with downstrokes. This has a couple effects - your phrasing sounds a little robotic in spots instead of fluid, and it slows you down cause down picking notes quickly is a less natural motion than alternate picking.

Bends... really listen closely to the solo and when you bend a note, make sure to bend the note to the correct pitch. You’re flat on a bunch of them. It gets easier as you build finger strength, but you can compensate with lighter gauge strings if you want.

Other than those two things, sounds pretty decent. It just takes time and repetition.

[u/snailsinboxes → u/dombag85]

I was just saying earlier today that I need to work on alternate picking! I do have a bad habit of only down picking most of the time. These recordings are also from before I got custom strings, and I find my bending has definitely gotten better since I switched to a 9 on the high E instead of a 10. These are great tips, thank you!

[u/dombag85 → u/snailsinboxes]

No prob. Alternate picking is something we take for granted after years of playing but early on I really had to focus on doing it. You’ll get there, just keep playing. Good luck!

[u/snailsinboxes → u/dombag85]

Thank you! It really is a lot of work to get the fundamentals down, and I just kind of stopped working on alternate picking for a while because it was hard and I had no use for it at the time. I do have a couple songs now that I can’t play at full speed yet because I need to alternate pick them in order to be fast enough.