Man, I’ve got a great lick for you
this month.
How can I motivate you to learn these five
notes? I’ll try a Pee Wee Herman reference.
Do you remember the scene in
Pee Wee’s
Big Adventure where Pee Wee starts showing
off by doing athletic stunts on his bicycle,
then loses control, and crashes in front of
a bunch of neighborhood kids? He gets up
and says, “I
meant to do that.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant
percentage of ’80s shred guitar solos were
created in a similar spirit. Imagine the scene:
The spandex-wearing, big-haired dude with
a whammy bar doesn’t really know what
he’s doing. The engineer hits the record
button on the big 2" tape machine and the
song starts to play. The guitarist moves his
fingers as fast as he can and takes some wild
guesses about where to bend and where to
end. After 10 takes of near gibberish, he gets
lucky and plays something that locks into
the key and the groove. He turns to the producer
and says, “I
meant to do that.”
Now, I must go on record by saying that
I fully support the “happy accident.” This is
rock ’n’ roll, not Mozart. At the same time,
the world could use a bit less gibberish and
a higher percentage of ...
melodic intention.
What do I mean by this? I mean playing
well-selected notes on
purpose because you
like the way they sound, not just because
they happen to fall in a convenient spot
where your fingers were going anyway.
How does one do this? Let’s start with
some good notes. And that requires a tiny
amount of music theory.
I present you with:
THE SINGLE
MOST IMPORTANT THING A
ROCK GUITAR PLAYER SHOULD
KNOW FROM THE IMPOSING
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC THEORY.
I think that we all have varying degrees of
tolerance for “book learning.” I will assume
that you, the reader, have a low tolerance. So
my job is to quickly and painlessly present
you with an extremely useful idea, and then
get back to playing the music before your
eyes blur with boredom.
So here it is: Which 6th should you use?
That’s it. Now, since you’re a rock guitar
player, I’ll assume you are playing in minor
most of the time. But which minor? Natural
minor (aka Aeolian) or Dorian? The 6th
degree is the note that tells you.
Let me list some tunes you might know,
according to their 6th.
Minor scale containing the minor 6th
(b6). This is natural minor:
“Crazy Train” (intro and solo)
“Stairway to Heaven” (end solo)
“All Along the Watchtower” (rhythm part)
“Suffragette City” (rhythm part)
Minor scale containing the major 6th (6). This is Dorian:
“Satisfaction” (intro)
“Highway to Hell”
“Born to Be Wild”
“Cold Gin” (intro)
The important idea is to know which
6th is in the chord progression, so you
can use the same one in your solo. Being
a “heavy metal guy” in my teenage years,
I heavily favored the minor 6th for years.
Later, when I tried soloing over rock tunes
with a blues influence, my habitual minor
6th sounded horrible over bluesier tunes.
It’s something that’s pretty obvious by ear,
but good to be aware of before blasting into
a solo.
Now this is all very general. Let’s get into
my specific solution for the 6th problem,
which is: Don’t play it at all!
And while we’re at it, let’s leave out the
4th too. Why? Because it’s not a chord tone
and when I leave it out, the key becomes
more focused, and I just like the sound better.
That’s why.
So we are left with the root, minor 3rd
(b3), fifth, minor 7th (b7), and the 9th—all
good notes. These are all strong chord tones
(1–b3–5–b7) plus one well-chosen extension
(9). By the way, the 9th is the “Sade” note.
Listen to her vocal melodies in “Smooth
Operator” and “The Sweetest Taboo”—the
9th is everywhere!
Let’s give these good notes a name. Let’s
call it a minor 9th arpeggio.
We are now full of melodic intention.
We
mean to play these notes. And we also
mean
not to play some other ones. Now all
we need is a good fingering. I’ve taken the
trouble to work one out for you. Check out
Fig. 1. The red notes indicate where the
root lives. In this case, we are in the key of
E minor.
Download Example Audio...
There they are, five good notes—Em9.
And the good news is, they fit on two
strings. This is wonderful because you can
use the same shape and fingering on the
next two strings, and then again on the last
two strings. Yes, you do have to quickly
shift your left hand position, but that is a
small inconvenience in exchange for easy
visualization. In other words, this lick is
super-easy for your eyes and brain. And
your fingers will follow.
One important technical note: I recommend
not picking everything.
Fig. 2 is an
example of how to combine some picking
with hammer-ons and pull-offs to make the
lick easier to play and sound smoother.
Download Example Audio...
I’ve found that these shapes are very
useful for fast sixteenth-note improvising.
If you compare the sound of these shapes
to more typical scales (natural minor or
Dorian), you’ll hear a real difference in how
the Em9 arpeggio does a much better job in
focusing your ear on the key and just sounds
more “intentional.” You
meant to play that.
Au revoir, Pee Wee!
Check out Seven Solos that Melted Paul Gilbert's Face on Page 2...
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 remembered as “the guy who got the drill
stuck in his hair.” For more information, visit
paulgilbert.com