Fly High
Here’s a solo from the Lifeline sessions.
This song is the last song on an amazing album. I’ve always been a big fan of Neal’s music and so it was a real honour when he asked me to record some guitar parts for his Lifeline album.
On the final album version, Neal took the last half of my solo and used the first half of a guitar solo he’d originally recorded for the song – which was fine by me, as I love his playing and it was a real honour to ‘share’ a guitar solo with him on his album!
What you have here is my guitar solo in its entirety – I guess this is the only place you’ll get to hear the full take! Also, after the guitar solo there are a few fills that continue to the end of the song, they didn’t make it onto the album version either – so another website exclusive!
Below is a rough mix of the solo (with the guitar turned up high so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Cornford Harlequin amplifier.
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
Lemons Never Do Forget
Here’s another song from the Lifeline sessions. This song was for the album’s bonus disc. It’s a great song by the Bee Gees – unlike anything I’ve ever heard from them!
Here are rough mixes of the parts I did for the track (with the guitar turned up high so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Cornford Harlequin amplifier.
Fills
Neal wanted me to do fill throughout the song – I opted for harmony guitar parts. The harmony fills made it onto the album I think they work great with the bluesy guitar fills Neal added throughout the song…
Solo
Neal asked me to do a Beatles-esque solo for the song. This is what I came up with…
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
Crazy Horses
This is another song from the bonus CD of Neal’s Lifeline album.
For Crazy Horses I recorded a harmony guitar solo and ‘horse noises’! I later learned that Paul Gilbert had also recorded guitar parts for the track and Neal, not knowing that Gilbert had done parts before asking me, opted to use his instead of mine (who wouldn’t want to have Paul Gilbert play on their album?!!).
On drums and vocals is Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy – great stuff!
Below are rough mixes of some of the parts I recorded for this song (with the guitar turned up high so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Cornford Harlequin amplifier.
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
Intro
Here are the ‘horse noises’ that Neal asked me to do for the intro. I experimented for a while before I settled upon the best type of horse noise – achieved with a bottle neck :o)
Solo
The solo on the original Osmonds track was great – I didn’t really want to change it too much so I just had some harmony guitar parts for a touch of colour.
Outro
Here are the final ‘horses’ followed by some outro mayhem.
Abstract Malady
I was excited when, in June 2008, I got an e-mail from Randy George (the bass player on Neal Morse’s albums) saying that he’d liked what I’d done on Neal’s last album, Lifeline, and asking me to contribute a few parts and solos towards his band’s coming album.
This tune, Abstract Malady, is the all important instrumental progfest on Ajalon’s ‘This Good Place’ album!
Here is a rough mix of the parts I did for the track (with the guitar turned up high so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Proamp amplifier.
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
Main Theme
When Randy George contacted me about this track, he asked me if I could write the main theme that would go with the syncopated stabs that appear in the tune at 2 points. I tried a number of ideas but final opted for this harmonised tapping riff…
Bridge
At several points in the tune there’s a bridge section that returns. Here’s what I did for the bridge Randy wanted me to play on…
Solo
I had an idea that I wanted the guitar solo to consist of two guitars, locked together in some kind of passionate dance – at some points complimenting and harmonising one another and at other points playfully fighting and jostling for position. This was the result…
Outro
And here’s the outro of the piece. Randy asked me to double or harmonise the final keyboard line – in keeping with the rest of the tune, I took the harmony option…
Out of the Ashes
Here’s another solo from the Ajalon sessions.
The song, Out of the Ashes, is a section from the album’s epic piece, Redemption.
The solo starts with a 4-guitar harmony section before the actual solo gets going. Then, at the end of the solo, the main guitar sustains the final note of the solo, to be harmonised by to other guitars. I tried to link this section of the piece with the next section by sustaining this harmonised chord into the next song.
Again, what you have here is a rough mix (with the guitar high in the mix so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Proamp amplifier.
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
Not Man Solo
Here’s an unreleased solo that I did for the Ajalon – This Good Place sessions
This solo never made it to the final album – Randy George (who produced the album) preferred a solo he already had for the track and decided to stick with that… so this solo has been retired to my website!
Again, what you have here is a rough mix (with the guitar very high in the mix so you can hear what’s going on!). The guitar is completely dry, with no fx, reverb, or anything – just my PRS going straight into a Proamp amplifier.
Check out the album to see how the track finally turned out.
The Flight Of The Hippopotamus
An unreleased cartoon lesson column for ‘Guitarist’ magazine.
The subject of the column was combining fast alternate picking with odd note groupings.
I took ‘The Flight of The Bumble Bee’ and played it in quintuplets (groupings of 5 notes per beat) rather than the tune’s original semi-quaver grouping (4 notes per beat).
A handy way of counting quintuplets is to use the word ‘Hipp-o-pot-a-mus’… hence the name of the tune!
Luke Spurrell: Bass and coughs
Paul: Everything else
Giant Steps
An unreleased cartoon lesson column for ‘Guitarist’ magazine.
The subject of the column was combining 8 finger tapping with playing over complicated chord changes.
Paul: Guitar
Jamie Humphries: Bass and Drum Programming
Giant Steps LIVE
I was involved with an organisation called IGF (International Guitar Foundation (or International Guitar Festival – depending on the occasion!)). IGF is an organisation that runs guitar festivals; weeks and weekends of guitar workshops. The first time I was asked to teach at their main festival in Bath I was still studying at ACM in Guildford.
When I heard that there was a compilation CD being put together for the festival, a quickly put together a trio, arranged a version of the John Coltrane piece ‘Giant Steps’, booked some studio time and we recorded the piece in one take from start to finish, with no edits (as our engineer; a fellow student, hadn’t learnt how to ‘drop-in’ at specific points of a recording yet!).
A few days later I found an old recording of me speaking under the influence of helium (I inhaled an entire balloon-full in one gulp; inspiring the words, “Wow, I’ve had a lot”) and stuck it on the end of the song.
For whatever reason, the song made it on to the CD under the name (or non-name) of ‘Untitled’!
Musicians:
Windsor McGilvray – Drums
Paul Galbraith – Bass
Heaven Rejoices
Soul Sista - Precious
A session for an album called ‘Precious’ by a project called ‘Soul Sista’.
Soul Sista was a project set up to showcase female gospel singers and was the conceived / arranged and produced by members of the band ‘Phat Fish’.
I remember recording the acoustic guitar part for this song in a church in Brighton. The studio control room was set up in a separate room and I recorded my guitar parts, alone, in the main room of the church.
Somebody had set fire to a patch of wasteland behind the church… now, whenever I listen to my acoustic guitar part in the first verse and bridge of this song, I’m transported back to the magical atmosphere of that night; the room lit by the glow of the out-of-control fire and the flashing of the fire engines’ blue lights – all in the perfect still and silence of the inside of the church building.
I’ve Had Questions
Soul Sista - Precious
Another song from the ‘Soul Sista’ album.
I spent an afternoon with Nathan Fellingham (the producer of the album) so that he could tell me what he envisaged for the album and to get me to show him how his ideas might transfer on to the guitar.
For this song he played me the Chili Pepper’s song ‘Parallel Universe’ of their album ‘Californication’ and said that he envisioned a similar guitar and bass part (albeit at a slower tempo and over a different chord progression) for the intro, first verse and chorus of the song… this is what we came up with.