So out of curiosity...

Let's say you're trying to adapt a song with vocals into an instrumental on stick. The most obvious thing to do would be to adapt the vocal line on the melody side. Now, what happens when between vocal sections, there's say a guitar solo, or lengthy section that maybe doesn't follow the typical vocal pattern of earlier in the song. How would you go about differentiating the two parts? I guess from my view, the audience would be hearing the stick "singing" a vocal part, but then the same instrument would be doing a section that may not fit/match with the vocal area.

How do you make the "solo non vocal section stand out to the audience as a different section? I realize this is a rather vague question. Perhaps take the song High Hopes by Pink Floyd...if you were to adapt gilmour's vocals as your melody, then switch to doing the classical acoustic guitar portion in the middle of the song and then back to vocal, you could (if you didn't know the song) misinterpret the classical guitar part as a vocal portion.

Again, sorry if this makes no sense.

This is an important and fantastic question.

I've wrestled with this a lot myself and found that there are a few things I keep in mind with my approach when covering a tune of this nature and maybe you might find them helpful. I found this information for myself by mostly spending my first decade on the stick playing mostly Beatles tunes.

1. Even though it's a cover, it's still your interpretation. You are playing an instrument that is exceptionally engineered to be the conduit of your musical expression. Play it anyway you want and in anyway that sounds good to you. (Emmett told me this.)

2.This tune, like with many classic rock tunes has that vocal and guitar solo centered approach, anybody who knows the song will know when solo comes in, how it sounds and when it ends.

This being said, here are a few things you can try:

1. Play the solo in a different octave from the verse.

2. Make your left hand less busy and make a musical opening for the solo to sit in.

3. If you have it, use an effect like a overdrive, chorus, flanger etc.. to make the solo stand out in contrast.

4. Play the solo on the left hand.

5. Listen to other stick arrangements of classic rock tunes, listen to what other players do to classic rock tunes and the memorable guitar solos, find an approach you really like and figure out what they are doing and why you like it, write it down on a list of things you like musically and use it for your arrangements as well.


These are just a few ideas off the top of my head but honestly it's really up to you. We play an instrument that has been exceptionally engineered to make the music that you want to make. I strongly feel that the song should be played how you want to play it and leave it up to the listener to find it, just as long as it sounds good to you. Like a songwriter, we must first move the emotions in ourselves before we move it in others.

I hope this helps.

totally agreed for all of the above

plus keep in mind that it is an ARRANGEMENT - so you don't need to follow the cover 1:1 .

following for start just the chord progression will do it for the listener

after that as mentioned : overdrive/synth/any other fx will do
keep in mind ,of course , that for vocalist each verse has different lyrics, so for the stick you can use different fx for each verse.or just play the same part octave higher/lower.

if you have MIDI pickup-it totally opens up for new arrangement ideas

also just playing the whole song clean may also do the trick..since it is an ARRANGEMENT

really depends on the song and where you want to take it.

one rule for all songs: no rule