This time it's a fast legato (hammer-on and pull-off) exercise with chromatic passing tones. As it contains some stretches for the left hand, make sure to do some warm-up exercises. (In general, ALWAYS do warm-up exercises before the real practicing begins! )
The lick is in the key of C major, but of course it can seen as an A-minor lick too - it all depends on the music you are applying it over. Notice the chromatic passing tones on the G and B strings, which give the lick a more smooth and more interesting sound, without sacrificing the tonality.
As a rule of thumb, it is always okay to use chromatic passing tones, as long as you end the lick on an "in" tone, i.e. a tone from the key.
TAB is included in the video!
Questions:
1) In your opinion who is the player, who you find as one of the most interesting legato players? Is is Allan Holdsworth? Or Joe Satriani? Or Brett Garsed? Or Guthrie Govan?
2) Do you use longer legato lines a lot in your playing? What are your experiences/findings/possible problems with this technique?
First step: try to locate the root (the note that sounds the most natural if you play it when the music is on).
Second step: if you have the root, check the 3rd note of the scale. Is it a major 3rd or a minor 3rd?
Third step: if it is a major 3rd, then check whether the scale is ionian (major), lydian or mixolydian if it is a minor 3rd, then check whether the scale is aeolian (minor), dorian or phrygian
Theory refresher:
Lydian: same as the major scale, but the 4th note is raised with a half step. Mixolydian: same as the major scale, but the 7th note is lowered with a half step.
Dorian: same as the minor scale, but the 6th note is raised with a half step. Phrygian: same as the minor scale, but the 2th note is lowered with a half step.
(the mode is not locrian, so this time we can discard it )
You can watch it here, and this video contains the TABs and the slow version too.
As you can see, I use 2-string version sweeps at the beginning. This is a cool way to create interesting sounds on only 2 adjacent strings. The sweep movement is the same here as well, regardless of the number of strings used.
This lick is an example for creating an arpeggio combination within a relatively narrow segment of the guitar neck. That way, the lick won't sound like a "neoclassical arpeggio festival", and therefore it is suited for wider range of applications, and in normal "non-guitar hero" settings. Basically, it can be built in into any rock solo.
As always, any questions or ideas/suggestions are welcomed!
In this exercise we use three different techniques on three strings – regular picking on the B string, hybrid picking on the high E string, and hammer-ons from nowhere on the G string. (The latter means: just hammer on the string without any previous picking on this string.)
So in the TAB, the legends are the following:
P = Picking H = Hybrid picking (with right hand 2. finger) n = hammer-on from nowhere
Practice it slowly, it is fairly easy on a slow tempo. Make sure that each string sounds at an approx. same volume, i.e. the hybrid picking and the hammer-ons should be equally loud as the regular picking.
It is of course a subjective question, but I thing we might get some useful insights, as there are a lot of great people here with lots of personal experience.
So what is your opinion? What are the 3 most important factors to be a successful musician?