July 2020

My daughter asked me to cover Ash’s guitar solo from the song “Set it All Free” from the movie “Sing,” over a year ago, so I learned it, had a bit too much fun recording it, and posted it on Instagram to pretty lukewarm results. A lot of my followers on Insta are either headbanging metalheads or serious jazzbos, so understandably, my cover of an animated porupine’s guitar solo didn’t turn too many heads… but it did on YouTube!

I’ve gotten a lot of kind words and quite a few requests for a tutorial and tab for this solo, so here it is! Scroll down for the tab.

I recorded my cover of this solo pretty quickly between lessons and missed a couple of details such as not playing the first part with a wah, playing the first melody with slightly different phrasing, and keeping the whammy set down at an 8ve up in the last measure as opposed to rocking it back and forth. These are easily changeable if you want to be 100% accurate, of course.

Once again, have fun learning this solo, and give me a shoutout if you post it on social media. I’d love to hear you play it!

Here’s a quick lesson on how to play “The Star Spangled Banner” for acoustic guitar.

This version is played on the top 3 strings and is relatively simple. Using multiple strings confines the wide range melody to fewer frets.

If you’ve been playing for a while, you can try adding your own nuances to the melody by adding things like…

• Legato Techiniques (hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and tapping)
• String Bending
• Vibrato

I deliberately kept the melody simple to allow for my students to express themselves as their technique and musicality develops. Give me a shout out if you post it on social media; I’d love to hear how you play it. Happy shredding and woodshedding!