Periphery Solo Contest – And the Winners Are…

We are pleased to announce to you the 3 winners of the Periphery contest we organized a few weeks ago. The 3 Periphery guitarists (Misha, Mark, and Jake) had a lot of work while on tour to pick their winner solo among the 250 entries. Anyway, it’s now time to check out their favorite solos…

The winners

1) Jere Lehtinen (Finland)

“jere_entry.gpx”
(click on the image to download the Guitar Pro tab)

Jere’s comment about his solo entry:

“What I really had in mind was to fit in to the groove of the song, really listening out what Halpern’s got going on there. In the beginning I tried to break the rhythm and the tonality a little by placing some off-beats here and there with some jazzy note selections to make an interesting introduction to the solo. From there I tried to write a fluent build-up to the bar 78 where I harmonized the ascending rhythm guitar part. After that I tip the tonality off-balance again with some non-chordal tones to make a contrast for the climax/highlight of the solo which is the tirplet tapping part. From there I try to keep it interesting with some modern sounding dissonances to keep the listener hooked, off to a powerful fast triplet-lick in the end to wrap things up. All in all I tried to listen what’s already there and tried to fit it all together with clear beginning-/climax-/ending structure.”

You can follow him on his Youtube channel.

2) Calvin Mark (South Africa)

“calvin_entry.gpx”
(click on the image to download the Guitar Pro tab)

Calvin’s comment about his solo entry:

“Going into this contest as someone who doesn’t spend an awful lot of time writing solos, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The way I approached it was by just filling up the bars with as many ideas or licks as possible and narrowing it down to what worked and what appealed to me the most. All I knew was that I wanted it to sound a bit “jazzy”.”

You can follow him on Instagram to check out his guitar work, covers and new songs.

3) Riccardo Belli (Italy)

“riccardo_entry.gpx”
(click on the image to download the Guitar Pro tab)

Riccardo’s comment about his solo entry:

“The idea for my solo started when i was jamming along the track, it took me just some minutes and i wrote it i think in a day. It was fun to play, and after i wrote it i did’nt changed anything. It was made just by an improvisation, for fun.”

You can follow him on his Youtube channel.

Over to you

What do you think about that kind of contest? Did you enjoy it? By the way, what is your favorite solo entry among the 3 winners? We would like to read your feedback in the comment section below :-).