Nicholas Chen

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notesmapplaylists

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guitar and drums have switched roles here - the guitar plays the same lick repeatedly over this guitar solo, while the drums are the thing that changes

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i find it incredibly funny that frank zappa’s entire discography is ironic, with the exception of this song which goes “racism bad”

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Surprisingly jazzy solo and bridge for what is a relatively poppy/rnb/hip hop song


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This trumpet section sounds so good. I love it when a trumpet line emphasizes the 5th, it feels so powerful and regal

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Drums start playing more bass/tom to build up to climax

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Feels like the climax of the solo. Big bend.

Going back and listening more carefully, the reason it feels like the climax is because the drums help build up tension right before it. Starting at 3:12, the drums play a bass/tom heavy beat, creating this buildup. That rhythm also stops after this climax.



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The guitar solo on this song makes me think of aerial combat. When I listen to it I imagine a fighter jet fighting off a fleet of enemies and emerging victorious.

This introduction to the solo, where a faded version of the solo starts playing before the actual solo starts playing, evokes the sensation of feeling a sonic boom before you see a jet plane fly by


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Great melodic guitar solo at the start. I'm fond of the guitar tone as well, sounds like a tube screamer

Reminds me a little of another asian indie rock song - album art for Spring SpringSpring Spring


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opening synths cut out to just a rumbly bass line and the vocals. reminds me of the intro to album art for 踊り子踊り子. i love this combination a lot (rumbly bass line and vocals), want to use it sometime in a song


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fantastic guitar solo, quotes the melody


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really cool rhythm guitar part on this at the start


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finally: i respect the guitarist's choice to not use trap rhythms on the solo, but i think it would still sound cool, and i want to try doing so myself


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great guitar solo on this. in my head, the obvious solo would go for the same rhythmic patterns of the vocals. the guitarist doesn't do that here which is cool.

the solo shreds but it doesn't go overboard with it, and starts more melodically with some big bends

the tone is also monstrously good, i get goosebumps when the solo starts



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great combination of trap and metal, building off the blueprint of tracks like album art for Fuck Around and Find Out (feat. $NOT)Fuck Around and Find Out (feat. $NOT).

the thumpy guitar riff is reminiscent of Tosin Abasi's style, album art for Physical EducationPhysical Education comes to mind as an example

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Incredibly cool call and response between drums and guitar here. Drum plays two hits, guitar plays a fill. The last fill is this low bend that gives the impression of a motor stalling, fitting the song's theme of car racing


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Incredibly heavy, fuzzed out guitar riff on this.


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Love the electric guitar comping on this - complements the vocals very well. Busy, but not too busy.

The phrasing sounds very much like Carlos Santana - maybe album art for Smooth (feat. Rob Thomas)Smooth (feat. Rob Thomas). Both songs also open with guitar solos.


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I love this song. Feels very danceable. I like the guitar fills as well, they’re very tasteful. sounds like a telecaster with a good amount of reverb on it

Like every other song on the album, the mix of instruments is just divine, everything blends together so well - guitar, horns, bass, drums, violin, piano…


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One of my favorite steely dan solos. There are 3 solos on this track and they all have similar motifs


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Incredible acoustic riff here, I have to learn this


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I've listened to this song a lot while traveling, mostly because the lyrics are kind of about it.

album art for Far AwayFar Away is not super similar to this song musically, but it evokes the same feeling of wanting to explore somewhere new. I also listen to it a lot while travelling

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The start of the guitar solo here quotes a motif from the song right before it on the album, album art for Spring SpringSpring Spring (motif introduced around 0:20 in original song)

I also really like the phrasing in this solo, it's very relaxed and spacey.


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Incredibly cool chromatic lick here


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Listen to how the bass and drums cut out at the climax of the solo, it's incredible

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Only here do the drums break into a standard rock beat. The bass begins to play root notes. Finally breaking into a rock rhythm creates this triumphant feeling, fitting after such a long buildup.

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Here the song enters a bridge like section, the chords change slightly, a flute enters with a new melody, the bass begins to play more traditionally, and some light percussion begins, mostly cymbals.

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As the piano solo builds into a climax, the guitar comping switches from a syncopated rhythm to strumming on the beat for emphasis


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The phrasing at the start of the solo here is really excellent.


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The fuzz intensifies further here.

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I don't like the way the bass is mixed here - it sounds terribly muddy. There's enough room in the low end to have the bass come through more clearly.

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I quite like the rhythm guitar comping here. It stays in the background but varies quite a bit. I like the tone a lot as well.


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Cool solo that uses this egyptian sounding scale.


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I really like Nick Valensi's #guitar work on this song - the #solo after the chorus is great. I tried transcribing it, and it's actually quite difficult, requires some pretty fast alternate picking.

It's also played in #dorian-mode , sharping the 6th of the minor scale.

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The first time I was trying to solo over a new song with The Walkups, I accidentally regurgitated the first four bars of the solo on this song without meaning to. I've never transcribed this solo, and at the time I wasn't even particularly fond of this song. I was sure I had copied my solo from somewhere but wasn't sure where. This song came on shuffle a couple days later while I was biking to work and I suddenly realized I had unconsciously ripped off an entire measure of the solo.

Anyways, I like this solo a lot.


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By convention, I'm used to guitar solos happening after the second chorus, where a bridge would usually be in a song. But it seems like a lot of indie rock songs tend to place them right after the first chorus. This song does that, album art for I Bet You Look Good On The DancefloorI Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and album art for The Modern AgeThe Modern Age do as well.

Come to think of it, I can't think of a single Strokes song where the solo happens during the bridge.


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Absolute screamer of a solo on this one. Really like the tone too, lots of reverb and some tasteful delay.

really leans into that 3/4 feel


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The main riff to this song is also fantastic, love how it lets the open D string ring out.


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There's this accompanying riff that he plays during the chorus that's fantastic where he arpeggiates the triads to chords of the chorus. It sounds so angular and distinct.

He definitely has a very distinctive soloing style, especially for a indie rock guitarist. He really likes playing intervals, triads and changes - it's a lot more sophisticated than your basic pentatonic indie rock soloing (which is mostly what I do). Contrast this to the solos in Arctic Monkeys songs (which I still really like!), which are almost all pentatonic, with basic bends - think album art for I Bet You Look Good On The DancefloorI Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. Even fancier indie rock solos like the one in album art for Slow Dance IISlow Dance II (or album art for Even FlowEven Flow, if we want to expand to grunge) are mostly pentatonic, and draw mostly from the Hendrix/SRV style of playing. What Nick Valensi plays here sounds completely different, and that's cool.





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The guitar shreds way more than usual for an indie rock song. Around 4:30 it goes into this fast triplet section that sounds a lot like album art for Free BirdFree Bird


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Guitar solo plays this weird egyptian scale around 2:05