AC/DC Malcolm Young Style

by Guido Bungenstock

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  • Hi Guys,

    Welcome to my lesson No. 72

    This lesson is about the great Malcolm Young Style! Based on the Song "Thunderstruck!


    Malcolm Mitchell Young (6 January 1953 – 18 November 2017) was a Scottish-Australian musician and songwriter, best known as a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter for the hard rock band AC/DC. Except for a brief absence in 1988, he was with the band from its November 1973 beginning until retiring in 2014 due to health reasons. Young and the other members of AC/DC were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

    Though his younger brother Angus was the more visible of the brothers, Malcolm was described as the driving force and the leader of the band. In 2014, he stated that despite his retirement from the band, AC/DC was determined to continue making music with his blessing.[1] As the rhythm guitarist, he was responsible for the broad sweep of the band's sound, developing many of their guitar riffs and co-writing the band's material with Angus. He was married to O’Linda Young and had two children, Cara and Ross.

    Young left AC/DC in April 2014, to receive treatment for dementia.[2][3] In September 2014, the band's management announced that he would be retiring permanently. He died from the disease on 18 November 2017.     (Wikipedia)

    In this lesson I used the typical Angus Young Intro and then underneath it, 4 cool Rhythm guitar patterns ind the style of Malcolm Young. Each riff is a great examples how you could build a wall of guitar sound by stacking different rhythm patterns.
    The structure of the whole song:


    INTRO 0:04-0:10
    |B5 | % | % | % |


    A Part 0:11-0:25
    |B5 | % | % | % |
    |B5 | % | % | % |

    B Part 0:26-0:41
    |B5 | % | % | % |
    |B5 | % | % | % |

    C Part 0:42-0:56
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |


    D Part 0:57 -1:11
    |B5 A5 B5 | E5 A5 E/G#|
    |B5 A5 B5 | E5 A5 E/G#|
    |B5 A5 B5 | E5 A5 E/G#|
    |B5 A5 B5 | E5 |


    E Part 1:12-1:26
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    |B5 A5 | A5 E/G# |
    Have fun! ;-)

    Final words

    I tried to transcribe as close as possible. Specially in the Guitar Pro file you'll find all this little extras!

    Cheers - Guido

    Technical specifications
    Guitar: Music Man Luke II
    Strings: Elixir Optiweb Strings
    Audio Interface: Focusrite Saffire PRO 24
    Recording SW: Logic Pro X, several plugins


    Kemper Profiling Amp: Martial Brit800 `86 (merged)
    Matrix GT1000FX with Marshall 2x12" V30 (for monitoring)

    The profiles are available for purchase here:
    http://www.guidorist.com/en/product-category/kemper-amp-profiles/


    Standard Tuning E, A, D, G, B, E

    Tempo: 128 BPM


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