Today we have another installment in the pentatonic licks series from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. This time Uncle D goes over the complete first solo from Hotel California by The Eagles. The first solo features Don Felder and is arguably one of the greatest solos of all time. So be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction and you will be rockin’ this classic solo and hopefully taking some ideas for your own tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I want to do another continuation on this series we’ve been doing on licks and Lead styles of different players and today we’re going to be looking at Don Felder.
So right now, Guitar Control is giving away this really awesome daily practice routine to improve your lead guitar chops. This was put together by our very own Silvio Gazquez, a two-time Guitar Idle finalist. This routine covers the four main concepts that are necessary for lead guitar; alternate picking, legato, sweep picking and tapping. All the tabs and exercises are all included in this free ebook and there’s a link in the description where you can get yours.
So be sure to click on the link in the description to the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at these.
Okay, so Don Felder a guitar player, one of the guitar players, from The Eagles. So this is the first half of the solo for Hotel California. So this is just the first half of the solo and then Joe Walsh shows the second half; so we’re just gonna be looking at the first half of Felder’s. This is one of my all-time favorite solos. I think that this is just really great melody and he makes everything follow the chord changes of the chord progression, which is really cool.
Don Felder Licks
All right, so we’re going to start off we’re going to do a slide from nowhere on the G string with your middle finger to the 11th fret… So it’s kind of weird and we actually rest on the first three beats and then we rest on the first 16th note of beat four. So this is actually coming in on the e. And then we’re gonna go from there to the 10th fret of the B string and then the 12th fret with your third finger; one, two, three, four and… All right, so we’re gonna do that bend up here on the 12th fret of the B string with your third finger and this is the very last of beat four. And now starting on the downbeat of one, we’re still holding that note, but we’re going to bend it up a step and a half and hold it… then we’re going to go back to the 10th fret. So when we hold this it’s a dotted quarter note so it’s getting all of beat one, the downbeat of two and then on the and of two we’re gonna go ten to twelve on the B string… we go 10, 10, 12 and then you’re going to take your middle finger and you’re going to grab the 11th fret of the G string and we’re gonna treat this like a slide from nowhere. So it’s like a little ghost note on there and we’re gonna slide to nine. So you’re picking and sliding like simultaneously… and we just throw the vibrato on there… Then starting on beat number four we’ve got four sixteenth notes again, so we’re going to go to the seventh fret on the G string with your first finger and we’re going to pick that and hammer to the ninth fret and then we’re going to follow that with this the seventh fret on the B string with your first finger and then back to seven on the G string with your first finger so you got this and we’re gonna do that rolling technique that we’ve looked at before… Then we come to the third fret on the G string on the last 16th note of beat four of the second measure we’re going to pull that just a little bit of a quarter step bend and then on the downbeat of one we’re gonna pick up the eighth fret. So we’re just going to take our middle finger and move it you know so just a half step up, but on the D string we’re gonna hit that with some vibrato for all of beat one and then we’re going to go to the ninth fret. So this part can be a little awkward because we’re going to have to completely change our hand position. We’re playing eight… but now we’re going to want to go nine. So we’re gonna move up and use our first finger on nine and then we’re gonna pick nine and hammer to twelve and pull back off to nine… so just quick looks like a triplet and then back to seven and we’re gonna do a half step bend and release and then we rest on the very last of that because that’s kind of the end of the phrase…
All right, so then that leads us to measure four. Now measure four we’re going to start on the seventh fret of the G string with your first finger and we’re going to pick that and hammer to nine and then we’re gonna go to the seventh fret on the B string. So I’m just going to do that rolling technique and then back to seven with a quarter step bend… So that’s beat one and there are 16th notes; so like one e and uh… Then starting on beat two we’re gonna go to the ninth fret on the D string with your third finger, to the eighth fret with your second finger and then back to nine with a little vibrato on there. Then we’re gonna do that same exact thing again, so the seven hammer to nine, roll your finger to seven on the B string back down to seven and then this time we’re gonna go to instead of going nine eight nine we’re gonna go nine, seven, nine and we’re gonna pull it off… And then from there to the seventh fret of the G string and that’s all of measure four… so all of it is sixteenth notes with the exception of beat number two. Now we’re doing that nine eight nine on the D string and this is all 16th notes; one e and uh, two e and uh, three e and uh, four e and uh…
All right, so now uh we’re gonna go to measure five and this is kind of like a another awkward part because we’re gonna have to shift up a little bit. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to shift up to the 10th fret on the B string with your third finger and we’re gonna bend. So I just have my second, first finger behind it, on the ninth and the eighth frets and now I’m gonna bend that a whole step and I’m gonna use my pinky to pick up the tenth fret of the high E string… so we the high E string hit the B string again and release the bend… Then we’re going to go to the seventh fret on the B string, tenth and then to the eighth and we’re going to bend that up a half step.
So if you noticed all of this very planned out. He didn’t just wing it. He completely composed this based around the chords and everything. And it’s like I said, I think it’s one of the most memorable solos, I really, really like this and hopefully this will help you to be able to get better melody in your own playing.
All right, so when we hit that bend that is right on the last 16th note of beat two and then it’s tied to a quarter note. So we we let that ring over beat three and then starting on beat four your first finger is already right there on the seventh fret. So we’re gonna go seventh fret on the high E string to the seventh fret of the B string; so again, that rolling technique. Then I’m gonna go to the tenth fret on the high E and do a full step bend… So we hit that on the and a four and then it’s tied to the downbeat of one… Then we come out of the bend, and you don’t want to hear it, it’s not a release, we’ve just got… so we’re still at ten and we pick it again and bend and release… Then we’re gonna go to the B string tenth fret and we hit it twice, well actually we hit it three times, and on the third time we bend it. Then we’re gonna do that kind of that same idea that we did earlier, we’re bending this up on the tenth fret and I’m going to use my pinky to grab the tenth fret on the high E string. And then we’re gonna hit that again on the B string, release the bend and end on the eighth fret of the B string. Then after that we have another kind of a what you might think of maybe as a little bit of a weird transition to get to this next part. So we’re coming from that… then we’re going to go to the ninth fret on the G string. So what I do is I just reach up with my middle finger and grab it and then bring my first finger up too so I can get some leverage because we’re going to bend this. And then we’re gonna do that same thing we were doing earlier, but now we’re skipping the strings, we’re bending the G string and then we’re going to pick the tenth fret on the high E string and then pick the G string again… Then we’re going to go to the seventh fret on the G string, so I just use my first finger, and then we roll to seven on the D string. So that’s we’re going to kind of cut this that little phrase in half… and the reason is as we hit this and this is on the last 16th note of beat two and then we’re going to go back to the seventh fret on the G string and we’re gonna pick that and pull the six. So what I do is I just switch my finger. I’m
going from the bend and first finger comes down and gets a little roll and then I switch to my second finger so that way I can pick that and do the pull off to the sixth fret with my first finger… So we do the pick and pull back to that seven with some vibrato and then we’re going to hit the sixth fret on the G string again, to the ninth fret on the D string and that’s kind of transitioning this to the next part.
All right, so after you do that, six of the G string so the ninth fret on the D string, then we’re gonna go seven on the G string hammered in nine with our first finger on the seventh fret of the B string. So we’re just doing this little half step bend and this thing is kind of this is done a couple of times here. So we’ve got the seven hammer to nine and we do that bend, so one e and uh, we rest the last 16th note on beat one and then we’re gonna do that bend again… and then bend and release… Now we’re gonna go to the ninth fret on the G string; so the eighth fret back to nine then that’s seven again with rest and two bends in a release the G string nine to seven. So this is kind of like that part at the beginning of it… Then this leads us to the very last phrase from this and this is a really cool lick and you’ll kind of recognize it just from other things that we’ve done in the past, it’s kind of a garden variety lick, but the way he that he does it I think is really kind of interesting. So he’s just taken an idea you like that Chuck Berry thing we’ve done different variations on. So we’re going to bend the starting on the ninth fret of the G string we’re going to bend that a whole step to the seventh fret on the B string to the tenth fret… then we’re gonna do that again… but this time instead of going the 10th fret we’re just going to hit the B and the high string together. So then we’re going to do that bend again and release, seven, still on the G string, back to nine for a full step bend with some vibrato… Then at the very last of it he bends the nine and releases seven and then nine on the D string then that’s where it transitions into the next solo, the Joe Walsh solo. All right, so the whole thing…
Conclusion
Alright, so there you have it, a fun solo with licks in the style of Don Felder. So if you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related topics. If you’ve not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
