The Bug Solo time! I break down the amazing solo from On The Night DVD, which I loved listening to for 15 years, but never played it. With this solo, I launch an entirely new section of The Mark Knopfler Songbook as I never discussed solos before. Now I do. This is even more challenging than playing Mark's songs, but I think I also have something to say about it. And I'll play everything on my Squier Mini, the cheapest electric guitar you can get, and on my Mustang Micro amp, the cheapest amp you can get. I think this is just another dimension of complexity! Pavel.
Welcome to the solo dimension... the solo is 95% correct, well done.
Thank you! This is exceptionally hard for me as I'm not an electro guy at all. People sent me their versions and sometimes I feel like a fool, missing important stuff and realizing it only after recording. But that happens, fortunately (I think) one can't reproduce something 100%, and hence there is no such goal.
For instance, now I noticed I bend those 12th fret notes and play 2nd and 3rd strings, while MK more or less doesn't bend it at all and used the 3rd and 4th strings as I think. But messing with such details is more than I can stand
Yes nobody can play MK 100%. Exactly, there's no bend at 12th. Also there's clearly a 2 string trick at 14th just a while after
the 12th one, which you don't play in the video.
That's certainly the hardest and the most controversial point in the whole solo, so thank you for joining me in this debate. I played it differently partly because it kinda sounds bad on a shorter scale, plus I don't get the way it switches to a lower voice. Personally, I want to hear this upper harmony. Besides, we've got some nasty instruments overlapping there, so it's a transcriber's nightmare. I'd really want to hear the guitar isolated, but probably not in this lifetime!
My decision was a pretty average one to my taste, a bluesy lick could sound like that and it's good enough for me. When I stumble across controversial places like that I usually go the intuitive route, as it's either not ever finishing the video or leaving it as is and doing something else. Even with my pace of content creation, I need to keep moving, so some sacrifices are inevitable, unfortunately. But I try to leave as few such places on my channel as possible.
As I revisited the solo I also got a few things that could've been improved, but hey, that's some really inappropriate perfectionism. I can go over any of my videos and find a million places where it could be better. Sometimes I feel pretty bad about it, but people's positive reaction gives me some hope.