Vic Black - Riff Magic: Natural Harmonics SI Lesson

Introduction

Hello GMC!

My name is Victor Knyrko, i'm from Estonia and i'm seventeen years old. I've been playing guitar for a while which is two years by now and my absolute #1 guitar player is Dimebag Darrell. Another major influences are Tony Iommy from Black Sabath and Kirk Hammett from Metallica. I play in numerous local bands as a session guitarist.

Lesson

In this lesson i'm going to uncover the possibility of using natural harmonics in heavy metal riffs in order to add some variety in the melody and to give it another feeling.

Heres is the main audio track which i called "Riff Magic": Riff_magic_NH.mp3 ( 1.13MB )

Fairly simple isn't it ? However almost all kinds of rhytm guitar techniques are involved here.
Now let's break this composition into 4 parts which represent four different riffs used in it.

(NB! '*' - is a natural harmonic note)

Riff 1

e|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|-9---------------------7---------------------5--------------------------------------------|
A|-9--*--*-*-*--*--*-----7--*--*-*-*--*--*-----5--*--*-*-*--*--*-----4----------------------|
E|-7--7--7-7-7--7--7--0--5--5--5-5-5--5--5--0--3--3--3-3-3--3--3--0--2--0--2--3--5--3--2--0-|

So basically this one is based on a power chord progression going down. Natural harmonics are played using alternate picking.

SLOW VERSION (100bpm): 1st_riff_slow_100bpm_.mp3 ( 226.84K )

Riff 2

e|------------------------------------|
B|------------------------------------|
G|------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------|
A|-2--------------*-----*-----*---2---|
E|-0--0-0-0-0-0-0-5-0-0-3-0-0-2-0-0---|

In this riff you need a constant down-picking technique and always remember to remove your picking hand from the bridge when you're playing natural harmonics so they sound fuller. Open notes are player using palm muting.

SLOW VERSION (100bpm): 2nd_riff_slow_100bpm_.mp3 ( 227.25K )