Grade Six Music Lesson

Hey guys, right grade six time!

We've got this track that sounds like noise. For me, this is equally inspired by bands like Extreme, who are personally one of my all-time favorite bands. If you're into this kind of rock, check out Nuno Bettencourt on Extreme. He's a phenomenal guitarist, and they've got some absolutely incredible songs.

This really reminds me of a track off their second album, actually. So, well worth checking that out if you're a fan of this song. Especially some of the riffage that's actually on the track is very, very Rage Against the Machine inspired. Maybe not necessarily the parts that you end up playing in this piece, but certainly, I think the overall vibe of the track has got a bit of that about it. So again, another band worth checking out if you like that element of this track.

Getting Started

First things first. With it being a rock track, we're going to want a nice big rock sound.

• Jump on your overdrive pedals.
• Make sure we've got plenty of gain on tap.

We have to make sure that we've spotted the indication at the beginning of the score that tells us we've got this kind of shuffle 16th feel.

• Every time we play 16th notes, we're not playing them straight; we're going to play them swung instead.
• This is a really important feel thing for this track.
• We don't want to be playing any riffs with a straight feel; it's got a swung feel, and you can hear that in the drums on the track as well.

So, you're probably naturally going to want to play this way anyway.

Opening Riff

If we take a look at this opening riff, it's a really, really cool riff. One technique that may be new to you is this note.

We've got an F# note in Bar 1 surrounded by a triangle symbol. This tells us that we're doing a pinched harmonic on that note. This is one of the techniques from the 80s. Whenever you hear the guitar making a really squealy sound, that's what the guitarist is doing: a pinched harmonic.

Technique Breakdown:

• It's a right-hand technique where you need to hold the pick really close to the tip.
• When you strike the string, you're also catching it with the side of your thumb.

This takes a lot of experimentation; physically where you pick the string in this area makes a huge difference as well to the sound of the harmonic you will get.

Listen closely:

• You can hear that kind of squealing sound as opposed to if I just pick the note normally, it's a big difference.
• You can get some really squealing ones if you want to, but it's worth spending some time just picking around that area to spot the point where it really takes off.

Now, this is indicated every single time you play that F# note. For me personally, pinched harmonics are something you can overdo quite easily.

• I intentionally didn't do it every time in my performance; I think I left it until the band kicked in so that that note really cut through when the drums kicked in.
• You can do it every time if you want, but for me, it's one of those techniques that can get old a bit quickly if you overdo it.

Swing Feel and Additional Techniques

Other than that, it's a relatively straightforward riff to play.

• Just get that swing feel going through the riff.
• Watch out for the little pockets of muting that we've got as well.

Other than that, it's quite a friendly tempo for this track.

Section B

At B, we've got these kind of searing melodies with lots of slides. It's a really, really nice melody.

What I did for the whole piece is had a delay on. If you can hear that, you can hear little repeated notes going on. I really put that on for this section so that those notes have a bit of ambience to them.

• Be careful with your accuracy with your slides; there's a lot of them.
• It's an exposed melody, so if you end up landing on a note higher or lower than where you're supposed to be, it will stand out.

Fill Techniques

Dotted around, we've got these little fills, these little lead fills.

• The first one we come across is really cool.
• Just watch out for the details: the odd pull off, the odd little bend, these little details really bring it to life, so make sure you're paying attention to those.

Right Hand Tapping

Around Bar 21, we have some notated right-hand tapping.

If you like this stuff, then definitely check out bands like Extreme and even Van Halen, who pioneered this technique in this style.

Tapping Technique:

• Any note that has a circle around it is to be played with our right hand, not our left hand.
• For each string change, we're leading with our right hand.

We're going to tap on the 19th fret and pull off to our fretted note, which needs to be at 14. Essentially, it's just a hammer on with your right hand.

• You can experiment with the direction of your pull-off: upwards or downwards.
• Make sure the tapped note is as equal in volume as any of the other notes we play with our left hand; we don't want a really quiet or loud tap note followed by an opposite volume on our left hand.

Conclusion and Soloing

The good thing is we have loads of time to get into that lick as well.

The previous bar is pretty minimal, so take your time. We're playing through it in a kind of six-tuck rhythm.

The ideal kind of scale for this is F# minor pentatonic, which I used for my solo.

• Play it with confidence; just really attack it.

Some cool things I wanted to include to make it really gnarly and aggressive were things like unison bends. If you've not come across them before,

• A unison bend is where you're fretting a note on one string, and bending a note on another string to match the pitch.

Final Thoughts

I also did some arpeggios toward the end of my solo, which worked really, really well.

• I've transcribed this for you, so you can look through and steal some of my ideas or take them as your own; that's totally fine.

Playing the top notes on the E string and skipping over the B string to the G string gives that wide intervallic sound, very similar to what you achieve with tapping.

Whatever you play, play it with confidence!

Enjoy it; it's a really, really fun piece to play! Best of luck looking through this piece. It is a bit of a challenge, very specific score and lots of techniques that may be slightly new.

Take your time with it, work through it nice and slowly, and you'll be absolutely fine. Enjoy!