Know Your Enemy - Intro, A fun guitar trick lesson! Options

[Azzaboi]

Know your Enemy - Intro

Tom Morello, from Rage against the Machine, plays some simple songs but nails down on rhythm and effects to make something basic sound like so much more! Guest Star appearance by Tool's Maynard James Keenan adds a new stylistic approach to the playing creating a haunting melodic sound - distinct staccato quality.

I'll teach that easy (but tricky) guitar trick used in the intro of 'Rage Against the Machine - Fistful of Steel (Know Your Enemy)'.

Use Standard Tuning (E,A,D,G,B,E), you can also use a whammy pedal with harmonize set to produce notes a perfect 5th higher (optional). The whammy pedal used is Digitech XP100 set on Patch 27th with the pedal rocked fully forward and left there.

This simple riff is in the key of F Sharp Minor and it goes like this:

CODE

E|---------------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------|
B|---------------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------|
G|-----------------------2---|---------------------------|---------------------------|
D|---4---2---4---2---4-------|---4---2---4---2---4---2---|---4--/7---9---7---4---2---|
A|---------------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------|
E|---------------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------|

CODE

E|---------------------------|---------------------------|
B|---------------------------|---------------------------|
G|-----------------------2---|---------------------------|
D|---4---2---4---2---4-------|--4---2--(2-2-2-2)---3--4--|
A|---------------------------|---------------------------|
E|---------------------------|---------------------------|

Practice simply playing this with picking to get down the pattern and basic 16th note rhythm in your head. (See 'sample one' audio)
Note you slide up the finger to the 7th fret. Near the end you palm mute the last collection in brackets.

You then want to get rid of the pick, hold it to one side.
Hammer-on and Pull-off the lick to make it sound as clear as if it was still getting picked. (See 'sample two' audio)
You can anchor the index finger on the 2nd fret and hammer on the fourth then pull-off slightly downwards to keep it ringing out.
Remember the slide and palm muting must still sound without any picking! Tap your finger down on the notes.
This is somewhat tricky since several of these must be hammer-ons from nowhere. Just take it slowly until you build up the hammering strength required then work on the speed. It should start to sound smoother flowing without any picking.

Now for the fun part!

Tommy uses a Kill Switch on his guitar, a button he can tap to cut off and turn on the pickup. Since most of us, including myself, probably won't have that feature on the guitar, we'll max the tone on the bridge and lower the tone on the neck pickup to zero so it doesn't sound. We can now flick the pickup selection back and forwards in time to get the same results!

Now practice very slowly at first and nail down timing between the hands. Rather than picking, think 'Guitar Hero'! You are alternating the picking select switch in time with your hammer-on and pull-offs. (see 'sample three' audio)

If toggle-switching is a new technique for you it might take time to get it sounding right.

Speed it up once your've got the rhythm going. (see 'sample four' audio)

Now your got that down, go out and learn the rest of the awesome song!

(sorry for the poor audio quality and low volume, you might have to turn it up a lot, I borrowed my friend's gaming headset to record it and used a backing track over top)

Original Song found on youtube, if that's better to work with rather than my crummy playing

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This post has been edited by Azzaboi: Sep 19 2010, 03:39 AM