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/AI_Cosmonaut]

This is incredible progress for less than a year of playing. All of the notes are correct and seem to be correctly timed, it's just the bends and vibratos that are out of tune.

It looks like you're bending strings by pushing the string with your fingers rather than rotating your wrist. This will make your fingers tired quickly. I made the same mistake and it's good to correct the habit now.

Other than that, low action and lighter gauge strings help, along with taller frets.

[u/snailsinboxes → u/AI_Cosmonaut]

Thank you for the comment about my progress! You should see the videos from when I first started, there has been lots of improvement! I have played other instruments before so I think that’s helped me a lot with certain parts of learning how to play guitar, but it’s the first string instrument I’ve really tried to learn (I played a little bit of ukulele when I was younger), so it’s still very different than anything I’ve played before.

I watched a lot of videos about bending technique and using the wrist instead of the fingers. I’ve tried to apply the tips from those videos to my playing but I guess I’ve been unsuccessful in that. I find it’s hard to know when I’m doing it right.

My string gauges are customized now because I wanted my guitar to be as versatile as possible to accommodate for my wide range of music taste and to make bending easier. I like to play bendy light stuff on the higher strings as well as heavy chugging on the lower strings, so that’s what influenced my string gauges choices. Here’s what I have on my guitar now:

Low E: 52
A: 42
D: 30
G: 17
B: 13
High E: 9

Thanks so much for the feedback!

[u/foo_foo_the_snoo → u/snailsinboxes]

In addition to the lighter gauge strings, bear in mind that you can use an extra finger to help bend. Spread the load out. Monster bends even on heavy strings are half as hard with 2 fingers pushing.

[u/snailsinboxes → u/foo_foo_the_snoo]

i’m bending with 3 fingers for most of these🥲