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I'm a big fan of this video

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with Prince, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Steve Winwood

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The cherry on the cake is Prince's guitar solo from 3:28 .

However - I'm not a musician so please bear with me - there are times where we hear the guitar but Prince doesn't seem to actually use it, his fingers are not moving on the instrument or he isn't even touching it.

Around 4:33 for instance, where he raises his guitar.

Was Prince's performance pre-recorded, or is it just that I don't know anything about the guitar?

Déjà vu
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This is a live performance. Prince is playing the solo but there are 4 other guitarists on stage playing chords in the background so you always hear guitars playing. At 4:33 he lifts the guitar but is still producing sound by pulling and hammering the strings with only his left hand, a common rock guitar technique. When a guitarist plays a solo it is usually not a continuous stream of notes but rather musical phrases with pauses between them.

John Belzaguy
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It's live. Where you can see his fingers, they are matching the solo in a way that would be almost impossible to fake for something of this complexity--not to mention the fact that guitar solos are typically improvised.

What you are seeing at 4:33 is the fact that electric guitars can produce a sound without being strummed. If you hammer down your fingers on the left hand, it will play the note. It is possible to do this even with an acoustic, but the sound will not be loud, whereas with an electric, it can be just as loud as if it were strummed.

EDIT: I didn't see that John had already provided essentially the same answer before I posted this. I'll keep this one up, because it adds some detail.

Chris Sunami
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