The other day, I downloaded sheet music for the UFO song “Rock Bottom” to see if I could learn the entire piece of music on guitar, including the highly-praised guitar solo by Michael Schenker. From the very first time I heard this song about five years ago, which came out on UFO’s album Phenomenon in 1974, I was struck by Schenker’s guitar playing and could not believe that I had never heard of this band before. I had originally found this song in an online list of the greatest metal guitar solos of all time, and this song was near the top of the list, which surprised me at first as I had never heard of this band, let alone this song, before. However, after downloading the song(as I had to do before streaming was popular) and listening to it, I was convinced that the list had gotten it right by including this song in the greatest metal guitar solos.
Despite the fact that I loved this guitar solo so much, and could hum just about every note of it in my head, I had never even thought about trying to learn it on guitar. While the rhythm parts of the song are not too difficult and I learned them by ear, the guitar solo, which lasts well over two minuets and includes numerous fast and complex measures, seemed out of my reach to me. I’m not sure what made me decide to try and learn it a few days ago, but I have been practicing it about 30 minuets to an hour per day and, to my surprise, I am actually making it come together quite nicely. When looked at as a whole, this guitar solo is completely overwhelming to me and it would be easy to just say that it’s out of my reach for now and practice easier music. When I take it each measure at a time, however, and give my fingers and mind the time and patience to learn the notes, it all of a sudden begins to feel that it is not out of my reach after all. I can’t play it up to speed yet, but I feel that, with maybe another week or two of practicing, I can get it close to dialed if I really work at it. It makes me remember that my guitar hero’s, Michael Schenker being one of them, are not where they are because of super abilities and talents that only they possess, but because they practiced, and practiced, and practiced, eventually getting to the point where they would write a song like “Rock Bottom” for people like me to enjoy and be inspired by.
UFO continues to be one of my favorite bands today, with some of their other songs such as “Light Out” and “Only You Can Rock Me” being among my top played and, of course, featuring amazing work by Michael Schenker. For anyone that appreciates good rock/metal music, let’s make UFO more popular.
Yes it does take practice Andre 😉
I love the way you write.
That is great, I’m amazed you were able to put it together.