{"id":4217,"date":"2022-10-22T19:56:14","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T19:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vancouverguitarlessons.net\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2022-10-22T19:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T19:56:14","slug":"rock-guitar-techniques-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uptempomusiclessons.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/22\/rock-guitar-techniques-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Guitar Techniques – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rock Guitar Techniques – Part 4<\/h2>\n

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Hey everyone, back for the 4th and final installment of rock guitar techniques.<\/p>\n

Today I will show you a few techniques that guys like Eddie Van Halen, and Yngwie etc. used often and still do in the case of Yngwie.<\/p>\n

Make sure you don’t stop at these examples, explore these topics further.\u00a0 Knowledge is power.<\/p>\n

There is tabulature and\u00a0 the video lesson below.<\/p>\n

Here we go!<\/p>\n

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1. Economy picking<\/h3>\n

I remember watching a video of Yngwie Malmsteen playing and was amazed at the precision of his picking hand and how it was so efficient.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the technique Yngwie employed was rest stroke picking AKA economy picking.<\/p>\n

The technique is essentially playing an odd number of notes on 1 string and allowing the pick to fall through the strings to the next string without making a dedicated movement.<\/p>\n

This use of economy allows for much greater speeds to be maintained.\u00a0 The only caveat is that some dynamics and timing is sacrificed.<\/p>\n

Check out the tab below in Fig 1 and follow the pick motion I suggest.<\/p>\n

2. Tap harmonics<\/h3>\n

First time I heard this technique was in the solo piece “Spanish Fly” from the album Van Halen II by none other than Edward Van Halen.<\/p>\n

Eddie later went on to expand greatly on this technique with the amazing “Mean Streets Intro” on the Fair Warning album.<\/p>\n

This technique involves a very light touch and accuracy with the tapping location of the harmonic.\u00a0 If you are off by a millimeter you will hit the suck button lol!<\/p>\n

Check out Fig 2 for the example.<\/p>\n

3. Yngwie and Eddie picking styles<\/h3>\n

Eddie Van Halen’s patented hammer 2 notes and pick 3 on the adjacent string should be required learning for all nascent shredders.<\/p>\n

Eddie was one of the first in rock guitar to bring blistering technique to the style.<\/p>\n

Fig 3 is an exercise I devised.\u00a0 Follow the picking laid out in the tab and you will improve your EVH style scale runs greatly.<\/p>\n

Yngwie also has his favorite innovation when picking his favorite scale, the harmonic minor scale.<\/p>\n

Yngwie devised an ingenius way to play descending scales fast and still sound like he was picking every note.<\/p>\n

This technique involves picking 2 notes and pulling off the 3rd on one string, then picking 4 notes on the adjacent string descending.<\/p>\n

This allows the pick to always pick the new string with a downstroke and saves us a stroke with each of the pull offs that happen in the 7 note pattern.<\/p>\n

Check out figure 4 below for the example.<\/p>\n

Thanks and please check out lessons 1, 2, and 3 of the series if you haven’t yet.<\/p>\n

Video and tab below.<\/p>\n

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Tab for rock techniques<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n