Hair-Metal slash "Butt-Rock" Guitar Solo Muso Advice Please

(Note also that the situation is as such: if I can get decent at this within a month or so, I'll agree to do the project, which I think would be loads of fun. If I can't, though, it's not that big of a deal.)

Seriously, get thee some Whitesnake tapes and learn some Steve Vai licks. You can even console yerself that Vai cut his chops with Zappa and Lydon before he went to Coverdale and David-Weave Roth!

That, or listen to some Bad Company. You could do much worse.

Maybe I'm being over-analytical about this but I'm not sure how else I can really help with this. Picking up some guitar magazines from the 80s might help as well BTW.

What can you play already? I rarely try to learn things besides things I'm writing, so this is difficult to answer. But if this is a skill-level question probably the hardest two things I've ever bothered to learn are "Castles Made of Sand" and the solo from Southern Culture on the Skids' "Soul City." Also I can do a wanky blues solo passably for maybe four minutes before I run out of tricks and start repeating myself.

Do you know how to read guitar music/know the names of the notes or do you use tab? I haven't read music in a long time, and never for guitar, but I think I still remember everything. And yeah, I "know the notes" fretboard-wise, so with a bit of squinting and counting I could read guitar music. Tab would be more my speed for this, however, as I'm less concerned about the notes than I am the sound and the tricks.

Do you do any finger exercises already? No.

Do you know any movable scale forms? Sure, yeah, and I have a decent enough understanding of the fretboard layout that I can improv decently, so long as there aren't too many key changes going on. Actually basically everything I do is improv, largely because I learned guitar by making up extra parts for Smiths records. My problem is that all of my finger-learned habits are irredeemably indie and are very little help here.

By "hammered shit" do you just mean hammer-ons and pull- offs? No, no, I can do these just fine -- I meant like two-hands-on-the- fretboard hammery pyrotechnic stuff. I was mostly kidding and don't think these will be necessary (although I suppose they could help).

So yes, the summary is that I think I'm reasonably competent with playing things in general but I've only ever learned to play indie things (and the aforementioned blues wank, which is a long story). I guess I'm working on the assumption that there's a particular set of wank-solo "tricks" or default-moves that I can try to slip in where my indie "tricks" and default-moves keep coming up -- like those obvious easy technique things that 14-year-olds learn and then do over and over until they pick up better ones.

(Obviously I also need to listen to a lot more of this stuff as well, and I'm thinking an Eric Johnson disc might be just the thing for ripping off little technical tricks.)

step one. learn all the modes of the major scale. ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian (also called natural minor) and locrian. get these from a jazz guitar book. these are the scales that are created by starting and ending a major scale on one of its degrees instead of its root, these are the key to a real prog/fusion/metal sound. if you're getting really deep (or into darker metal) you can learn harmonic or melodic minor and the modes derived from harmonic or melodic minor (but those are less useful for your purposes). make sure you can do them all at least two octaves. next, learn how all the modes in a key lock together on the fretboard. lay all your modes out starting on the lowest string and think (in the key of 'c' for example) how the aeolian mode starts on 'a' and the locrian mode starts on 'b' ... try using these two modes together and practice fingering between them, now add another mode and then another. pretty soon you will be able to travel from the lowest note on the lowest string to the highest (correct note) on the highest string by visualizing the modes for a particular key all over the guitar (which in this case really only amount to fingering patterns).

step two. practice your scales at a medium tempo with a metronome. pretty self-explanatory why you'd want to do this. get really fast.

step three. practice your now fast scales in different fingering patterns. try ascending and descending thirds -- in c major try

c, e, d, f, e, g, f, a, g, b, a, c, b, d, c. (that's one octave ascending).

then learn your scales in fourths and fifths and so on. now, notch up the tempo and run your scales -- mixing up linear runs and intervalic playing.

shred.

Check the April 2002 issue of Guitar World for an exclusive interview and guitar lesson with Morbid Angel founder and guitar wizard Trey Azagthoth! In the 2-page article, Azagthoth reveals some of the secrets behind his "complex, psychotic riffing and twisted arranging skills" and offers insight into several classic Morbid Angel songs, including "Chapel of Ghouls", "God of Emptiness", and "Where the Slime Live". This candid interview and lesson with "The Undisputed Overlord of Death Metal Guitar" is now available on newsstands worldwide. It's not the Van Halen style, but would make for the wickedest video game music ever.

Some other little tricks/embellishments you can try are "raking" up to big dramatic vibratos or bends on the higher strings. (i.e. Mute the lower strings and quickly sweep the pick across them before you come to the note you want to bend or to which you will add vibrato. BTW, this may be obvious but never leave a long note as is. Always bend or add vibrato. Vibratos should usually be a whole-step wide.)

Practising sweep-picking minor arpeggios might be useful too. e.g. You can play an A min arpeggio 5h8(6th string), 7(5th), 7(4th), 5 (3rd), 5(2nd), 5h8(1st). Try to play this in a single downstroke with the pick. (Practise slowly at first. It'll become fast pretty quickly.) You can use parts of this in a solo. One twiddly lick, for example goes

Sweep: 7(4th), 5(3rd), 5(2nd), 5h8(1st). Now on the 1st string immediately tap 12 with the right index finger. (It's not hard. Try it.) Pull off (t12p8p5p0) in 16th notes. Then h8p5p0 in 8th-note triplets. Then bend into your next lick.

Let me know if this makes sense and if this is the sort of thing you're looking for. I should go practise or something now.

-- (n)bitsuh,

Reviving this thread for a new question:

I’m trying to explain artificial harmonics and pick harmonics to someone who doesn’t necessarily understand what those are. I want to give examples of songs (preferably metal or hair-metal songs) that famously use these techniques. I’m looking basically for the most obvious possible answer.

For artificial harmonics (i.e. the kind where you simply rest your finger on a string other than the 5th, 7th, or 12th fret, making a kind of distorted ringing sound) - I’m thinking the breakdown in Megadeth’s “Holy Wars” or the opening riff to Pantera’s “Primal Concrete Sledge”. The latter is way too obscure, and the former might be a hair obscure as well.

For a pick harmonic (i.e. the guitarist really makes the guitar squeal), I’m thinking of the guitar solo from Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

Am I missing way more obvious examples of these two techniques? I want someone with a decent understanding of music to immediately know the sounds I’m talking about.

Van Halen - "Ain't Talking About Love" is a standard pick harmonic riff, esp. when Eddie leans into the lower G.

There are lots of pick harmonics in Billy Gibbons' mid-'80s work. Check out the solos in Legs for a start.

Yeah but scott's pupil isn't gonna get those unless he/she also uses a peso instead of a pick...

Both Van Halen and ZZ Top are pretty good suggestions. I'm open to more if anyone's got 'em.

It is really, really funny that this thread got revived, because over the past month I've been trying to learn how to do good sweep arpeggios. Clearly some part of me really, really wants to learn to shred a little.

if no one minds i'm going to have a considerable lol @ "butt-rock Miyagi"

I'm going back into the woodshed tonight. Gonna learn me some shred.

yeah i just picked up my git and started running modes up the fretboard for the first time in years. like riding a bike! oh how the appendages hurt.

thanks ilx!!