The Oldsmobile Rides Again
BY PAUL GILBERT
Paul Gilbert purposefully began playing guitar
at age 9, formed the guitar-driven bands Racer
X and Mr. Big, and then accidentally had a No.
1 hit with an acoustic song called “To Be with
You.” Paul began teaching at GIT at the age of
18, has released countless albums and guitar
instructional DVDs, and will be remembered as
“the guy who got the drill stuck in his hair.” For
more information, visit paulgilbert.com
CHOPS: Intermediate
THEORY: Intermediate
LESSON OVERVIEW:
• Prepare yourself for when you
get a flat tire.
• Learn how to turn your favorite
chords into solos.
• Investigate the subtleties of the
7sus4 chords.
Click here to hear
sound clips of
these examples.
“Wait! Look over there … in the dark. Is that an abandoned car?”
I am always amazed how bad luck and
good luck can occur simultaneously. It was
my 20th birthday, and I was with my band-
mates from Racer X. We were recording our
second album in a remodeled chicken ranch
north of San Francisco. We had taken the
night off to see Poison play at a club in the
city. Poison’s catchy tunes and choreography
hadn’t had time to work their magic on
the masses yet, so C.C. and the boys were
still slogging it out in the clubs. After the
show, my bandmates and I piled back into
my newly purchased—but very previously
owned—Oldsmobile and headed back into
farm country where the chickens and our
guitars awaited us.
It was about an hour drive into rural
darkness before we would reach our desti-
nation. The city lights had faded from the
rearview mirror. We were tired and traffic
was sparse. The night was peaceful and …
BLUCK! blook-blook-blook-blook-bleck-
bleck-bleck-bleck-blunk-blunk-blunk-blunk-
blunk ... yek … yek … yek … yubbbb.
And that’s what Jeff did. He looked at
the lugs on my car and saw where they
needed to go in order for the replacement
wheel to fit.
This principle can be applied to playing arpeggios on a guitar. First, let’s pause
to take a look at the dictionary definition
of arpeggio: The notes of a chord played in
succession, either ascending or descending.
That’s just fine, but I’m going try an
experiment. I’m going to discard the second half of the definition (ascending or
descending), and focus entirely on the first
half. Let me show you what I mean. In
order to play the notes of a chord in succession, we’ll begin by choosing a chord.
I’m going to pick my #1 favorite chord in
the world. It’s a dominant 7sus4 chord. Why
is it my favorite? Because my eyebrows rise
up and my forehead gets all crinkly whenev-
er I hear it. It’s also in these awesome songs:
“What a Fool Believes” — The Doobie
Brothers (first chord)
“Real Man” — Todd Rundgren (“got
my head in the sky”)
“A Hard Day’s Night” — The Beatles
(the legendary opening chord, arguably)
Enough chord promotion. It’s time to
grab you guitar and play it in the key of D
as shown in Fig. 1. As you play the chord,
please notice that the voicing is 1–5– 7–4–
5. In contrast to this chord, the corresponding arpeggio, according to the strict dictionary definition, should voice these notes in
purely ascending order: 1–4– 5– 7
Fig. 1
5fr
D7“ 4
Fig. 2
7fr
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Fig. 3
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7 10
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10 7
10
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10 7
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