How to play the 'Driven To Tears' solo...
by Greg Danielak
You know something good when you hear it. Andy certainly did during the 'Zenyatta Mondatta' sessions. Rolling the tape to record something to fill up space before the last verse of 'Driven To Tears', he spontaneously blurted out a twisted, feedback-laden, dissonant beauty that has since then become one of his trademark solos.
As he told Guitar Player magazine in September '82, "Actually, we went into the studio and said, "Right, there's a hole left for the guitar solo." The solo on the record wa the first one I played. I thought it was good, but maybe I could do better. There were three or four tracks left, so I did a couple more, but that was the one. That song is about too many cameras, not enough food, etc., etc. It's about the state of the world, and the solo was supposed to reflect the angst the lyrics were talking about. So that's why the solo is angular and angry. If I went in there and did a Larry Carlton-type solo, it'd have been terrible. We try to make it short but really to the point, to have power in a short space."
This solo is a great lesson in 'landscaping' a solo and phrasing. Andy has time and time again said that 'rhythm, not speed, is the key to great playing.' Add to that, in order to phrase really well, one also needs a great sense of sensitivity to the surroundings. Read the following and consider everything.
The piece builds up with a fast-picked F# note that last for four whole measures while finally getting 'released' with a charged slide up the neck. This can represent the growing anger and tension in the world that Andy conveys perfectly with this part. The rhythm part in the background and Sting's cries (Whoa - oh - oh) all add to the clamor.
Andy then explodes like a riot with a chromatic line that inches across the frets like policemen (no pun intended) out to stop the ensuing violence. He does a quick trill in the second half of the sixth measure that seems to say "Wait! Stop! What's it all worth?" Sure, he could have kept on playing, but he took a rest and let Sting's bass and Stewart's drums contrast heavily and effectivley with what he just played.
In a daze of confusion, he snaps back into playing (and consiousness) by doing quick, random chokes across the top two strings, like he wants to get something, anything out of them, as long as they're alive (vision an emergency room table hectic for solutions.)
After another four chromaticized notes he delivers a soulful passage that resembles the blues fron hell (beginning on measure 8.) Here, Andy plays a typical pentatonic passage (A, G, E) but then throws in an Eb, hits a Db, and bends it up to D. By adding the Eb and Db between the regular notes in this would-be pentatonic patten (A, G, E, D) he breaths new life and perspective into a scale pattern that's been done to death (and ironically, spells AGED.) This part also catches you ear because Andy starts this off in A while Sting is in E - and when Andy hits the Eb, ouch!! (Andy does this type of 'outside pentatonic' playing in alot of his stranger composistins, such as 'Monk Hangs Ten' from Synasthesia (1996), where the nucleus of the song revolves around a simple pentatonic pattern played against a totally unrelated chromatic power-chord riff.)
A hopeless bend out of nowhere pleading for an answer to all the world's problems, another chromatic pattern and wretched feedback end this breif but brilliant solo. While Andy certaintly wasn't exaggerating as much as I have here, this solo is a perfect statement to what Sting was trying to say with this song, and is more proof that taste and restraint can say more than speed if done carefully.
For maximum effect, play this solo with alot of distortion, no compression and stand as close to your speaker as possible (for greater chance of harmonic feedback occuring.) As you may discover when learning the fingering, there is nothing technically difficult about this solo at all - but can you capture the mood the way Andy did?
The guitar players I can think of right now that have a similar approach to this solo (countering dissonance) include David Torn, Adrain Belew and Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Bill Frisell, Mahavishnu-era John McLaughlin, and Trey Azagthoth and Eric Rutan of Morbid Angel.
Copyright 1980 Gordon M. Sumner Published by Magnetic Publishing Ltd. (PRS) Represented by Blue Turtle Music, Administered by Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP) in the U.S. and Canada International Copyright Secured
All Rights Reserved
Lesson By Greg Danielak - 2001
