This wah-wah solo can be found on my band Artifex's latest demo - a song called "Alley cats". It is cool because it revolves around a single riff in E. Since there aren't any chord changes to rely on - the solo needs other qualities than the harmonic ones. Therefore, I focused on crazy sounding wah-wah licks, rhythmic ideas and MIGHTY SLIPPERS . Once again, this is a way to make a cool solo without relying on strong chord notes. The solo reaches it's peak with an exotic/progressive sounding phrase which I play in unison with my drummer and bass player.
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Backing Riff
There is no obvious "tonic center" (key) in this riff. However, the notes of the solo revolve around E minor.
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Eminor scale twelve positions (Red dots = root notes ):
Aaah this a cool way of using the wah-wah pedal - no other instrument could ever come near this
kind of sound.
If you know how to bend a note this shouldn't be hard for you. The trick is to make sure both strings are ringing at the same time, and to press the wah-wah pedal forth while bending.
When the note is bent to the right pitch (when both strings have the same pitch - you should hear it) the wah-wah pedal should be "closed".
This commonly used, evil-sounding speedpicking pattern, is one of my favorites.
The lick starts fast and accelerates to even quicker. To achieve this I start with speed picking, to get the furious sound. The last nine notes are however played with hammer-ons and pull-offs, in order to achieve ultimate speed.
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Exercise:
This is a standard speedpicking exercise. As always play this to a metronome (triplets= three notes per beat), with strictly alternate picking (up & down):
I personally enjoy improvising around these licks, I am constantly amazed over how many variations it is possible to come up with, if you just give the exercise some time.