House of the Rising Sun Solo help?

The solo to House of the Rising Sun seems to be derived from the riff plus the melody. But I can't get the melody part quite right - any bends, slides, hammering in or pulling off involved?

Try listening to the original by Led Belly. The man who sings it under this name is the man who wrote the piece, or at least as close as we can figure. One of the songs Nirvana plays, Where did you sleep last night is accredited to Led Belly. The Animals got House of the Rising Sun from him, but either way listen to the original the melody is very strong and prominent. Good Luck!

um, it's an organ part. Keep jammimg along and you will soon figure it out.

It's syncopated.

thumb down all strings and pick each string from the bottom up individually throughout - 123456downquick and 6-5-4-3-2-1 up slowly and you got the rhythm .

As you can see I'm not a guitar player but a pro tried and tried to teach me that years ago , hope it helps .

you can always compose your own solo instead. Since it is an organ, you can either transpose it note for note, or play around with a pentatonic scale around there and get pretty good results. That's what I do anyhow. It just gives it your own little flavor. Adding slides, bends, and ect. just adds a little more to the melody. I like to add a little vibrato here and there also. Helps create a rustic feel.

Chris got this right, good going Chris!!!!

Yeah , it's based on the melody , but rather than try to get it note-for-note, just do what was obviously done anyway - just interpret the melody, and add your own inflections...

Bob Dylan did a very interesting version of House of the Rising Sun on his first album (Bob Dylan, 1962, a couple of years before the Animals version). Check it out - it's a spine chiller! Also, because he accompanies himself on guitar, you can get some more ideas on how to play it.

Don't worry about copying ANY solo - try to do what Jimi Hendrix did with "All Along the Watchtower", or Johnny Winter with "Highway 61" - make it "your own". As long as you stay true to the spirit of the song and don't make it too weird, it will be more interesting.

If you HAVE to copy the solo exactly, get software or a machine that will slow the solo down to half-speed without changing the pitch, and then learn it at half-speed and SLOWLY play it faster using a metronome to be your guide to the faster tempo.