Click here to head to
premierguitar.com/apr2011 to hear
sound clips of these examples
Listen to the pitch while you’re bending
to make sure you’re hitting the notes dead-on. Some bends are half-steps and others
are whole-steps. Your ear has to teach your
fingers how far to bend. So listen closely to
the pitches and make them accurate enough
to stir the spirit of Ronnie James Dio and
every dragon he ever wrote of slaying.
Seriously, bend those notes in tune. Please.
Then shake them around a bit with
some controlled vibrato to make them even
more stylish.
Keep Listening. Your eyes won’t help you
with this. Bending and vibrato need to be
guided by what you hear. Try these bent
notes again, and don’t let the evil bus driver
of nervous vibrato get into your sound.
I know this is important because I watch
so many guitar players who haven’t practiced bending up to chord tones. So please
excuse me, but it has to be done. I want us
all to sound better, and this is an easy way
to immediately improve your playing.
Now let’s add a face-melting shred lick
into the picture.
How do you know if you’ve earned
your shred license? You are legally entitled
to shred when you can transmit a tempo
via your playing to the listener. In other
words, if you take away the drums, bass,
rhythm guitar, and keyboards from your
song and just listen to the guitar solo by
itself, does it still inspire you to bang your
head to the beat?
Is it floating above the groove or locking
in? Both ways can be musical and good.
But I’ve witnessed so much playing that
does not “lock in,” that I can’t help but
encourage you to try it.
Let’s get back to the face melting. Check
out the lick shown in Fig. 2. It begins with
an upstroke, and every downbeat of the lick
is always an upstroke. Also notice that the
lick stops and leaves a nice hole before it
starts up again. This hole is still in time, so
respect the hole and don’t rush it.
Don’t worry about playing the lick fast.
I want you to get the upstrokes right and
play this example locked into a tempo.
The tempo should be slow at first. I
recommend keeping it slow for days (or
even weeks) while you listen to the quality
of the notes and make sure there’s no string
noise or rushed notes. Just relax and make
this lick your mantra. Always leave that
nice big hole.
Fig. 3
44 &
66
oeoeoe oeoeoeoeoeoe oeoeoe fioej oe. oe oe
66
oeoeoe oeoeoeoeoeoe oeoeoe fi oej oe. oe oe
1
1/2
˙
2
5 4245
2
5
4245
5
2
&
66
oeoeoe oeoeoeoeoeoe oeoeoe fioej oe. oe oe
1
2
5 4245
2
5 4245
72
2
5 4245
2
5
4245
42
66
oeoeoe oeoeoeoeoeoe oeoeoe
fi oe #j oe. oe oe
1/2
7
2
5 4245
2
5 4245
2
&oe
6
oe oe# oe
6
oe oe# oe
oe.
fi oej oe
oe
oe
oe
oe
oe
oe
1
8
2
2
2
5
4
2
4
5
5
4
2
4
