Howdy!
I’m doing a guitar solo transcription every week this year! Click here to find out why. This week we’ve got a pretty epic one. Isn’t it awesome when you hear a soaring lead guitar that sounds like it could be played majestically at the top of a mountain? All My Fears On You, the closing track on Big Wreck’s latest album Grace Street, takes that to the next level! The guitars were actually recorded outside at the top of a mountain in Canada. Ian Thornley talks about it in this video:
It may be because I know how it was recorded, but the guitar tone on this song is a bit magical. I’ve definitely added mountain top guitar solo to my bucket list. If you don’t know about Big Wreck, check them out because they are a fantastic band! You can find their back catalogue on Spotify here. If you’d rather just bring up this song, click here.
The techniques.
Firstly, the guitar solo is double tracked, and each of the tracks is nuanced slightly differently. This makes the solo sound huge, reinforcing the mountain-top theme. Thornley also uses a wonderful technique where he repeats a phrase and plays it with a slightly different technique on each repeat. You can see this in bars 7 and 11 of the tab. Loads of amazing guitar players, such as Gary Moore and Jimmy Page, have used this technique in some of their most famous solos.
This solo is very well balanced in terms of it’s use of different techniques. We have bends, slides, legato, double stops, and most notably some great vibrato throughout. I will definitely be using this to check out my students’ technique in the future!
My favourite part is the lick spanning bars 9 and 10. It’s a descending E Major arpeggio that fluidly turns around into a monster ascending lick with really interesting note choices. Watch the fingering here, because it’s quite easy to stumble if you don’t plan ahead! Anyway, enough rambling! Here is the transcription:
Until next time…
Thanks for checking out the transcription. I really hope it helps you! If it has, please let me know in the comments. I will be looking at something pretty cool next week, so check back on 17th February to see it. Want some more? Why not check out last week’s post!
Do you have any suggestions of guitar solos I should transcribe? Or would you like to book a lesson to learn how to play your favourite shredder’s guitar licks? Get in touch with me using the contact page and I’ll do my best to help wherever I can.
Big love, and awesome licks.
Ed
Not sure if I commented before but I really love that you transcribed this. Ian Thornley is awesome and this really helped me get it down properly. I absolutely love that you talk through the theory involved and technique/approach (repeated sections with small changes). Also, the clarity on the transcription is top notch. Keep it up!