By Jon “JMAC” McCammon

Not all songs necessitate a solo, but for the ones that do, make it shine like the rest of the song!

When I wrote the solo section to ‘Wonderland‘ I wanted that build up to double time a la ‘Freebird’. So, I had the distorted rhythm come in a few phrases before whilst the vocals had a repeated phrase and the other instruments would build up to when the solo started and then, BLAM!!

The drums kicked into double time and the solo started with some mid range wailing and pentatonics. I’m a big fan of licks that continue into the next phrase, so I took an ascending lick and continued up into the high range which was a cool way to take it to that upper register shredding we love so much. I then played a couple of hemiola phrases that set me up for a descending lick into the drum solo stops.

The song doesn’t necessarily have a bridge but there are a couple of transition chords which I thought would be great to send the solo section off with. I put a more metal feel to the rhythm part and wrote an ascending F Lydian lick (with some chromaticism) that sat on a high note at the end whilst the rhythm section built back to the original feel only this is one of those “nah nah” sections with huge drums and ringing power chords.

This is all just an example of making things hip and dynamic when the guitar solo comes, and sometimes the solo ends up being the centerpiece.

-Jon

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