Dave Navarro Style

Welcome to this lesson in which I cover the style of the talented guitarist Dave Navarro, who plays in the alternative band Jane’s Addiction. He has been a big influence on my guitar playing because I think that he took the guitar playing to a new level in Alternative Rock music during late 80’s and 90’s.

"David Michael "Dave" Navarro (born June 7, 1967) is an American guitarist who plays in the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction and cover band Camp Freddy. He has also played with Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Panic Channel, and many others." - Wikipedia.

Music Style:
Dave Navarro has was influenced by Jimi Hendrix and also by Heavy Metal, Funk and Industrial styles. His guitar style and the way of composing are defined by a perfect combination of his influences. He has a very personal way of creating riffs, rhythms and melodies and that can be noted not only in Jane’s Addiction music, it can also be identified in Red Hot Chili Pepper’s album called One Hot Minute in which he played guitars and got involved in composition. In this lesson I created an experimental backing track based on Jane’s first albums in which we have a bass loop, electronic loops and then drums and electric guitars. Over this cool backing I recorded some funky rhythms in the beginning and then guitar solos based on his most often used licks and ideas.

Tonalities and Scales:
Navarro has strong influences from Hendrix and that’s why we will find the use of blues progressions, dominant chords, and Mixolydian mode. He also uses minor tonalities but most of his music is in Mixolydian mode. That’s why I used this mode to create the backing track’s progression that is basically a E major chord and a D/E. The Mixolydian mode is a major mode that has the b7th (7th minor). Check this link to learn more about this mode. LINK

Techniques:
Dave has a great balance between groove and speed in his music. He can go from a very funky rhythm to a shred lick in the same song as happens in this tune. In this lesson we will cover the most often used techniques by Dave. We will use and talk about alternate picking, strumming, sweep picking, bending and vibrato.

Sound:
I used my Pod HD500 and my Gibson Les Paul Studio for this lesson. The tone was basically based on Marshall JCM900 head and 4x12 cabinets. I also used emulated chorus, delay and a tube screamer for the solo section.

Click HERE to download the Pod HD500 Clean & Dirty Patches.

Tuning: Standard 440

Tempo: 100 BPM

Ok guys, let's study one of the greatest Alternative rock players.