CREATIVE | “““"® GUITAR 2 meas ge SSPrinted i the United Kingdom by MPG Books, Sogmin ‘Published by Sanctuary Publishing Linvted. Sanctuary House, 45-59 Sinclar oad, London W'14 ONS, Unted Kingdom ‘evr sanctusryublishing com Copyright. Guthrie Govan, 2002 Music typesetting Cambridge Notation Cover photograph Geny'Stone/Patrick Covghin All night reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form ot by any jectrone or mechanical means, cling information storage ar retieval systems, without permission n wating fam the publisher, except by a reviewer, ‘who may quote bret passages. ‘nie the publishers have made every reascnabe effort to tact the copyright ‘ovine's for any oral ofthe photograph in ths book, there may be some Comissions of cred, for which we apalogse. 'S8N:1.86074.067-2CREATIVE GUITAR 2 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES Guthrie GovanBOOK CONTEN CD Contents Foreword Introduction ALTERNATE PICKING...... SWEEP/ECONOMY PICKING.. LEGATO. TAPPING .. EIGHT-FINGER TAPPING.. PICK AND FINGERS.. EXTENDING THE FRETBOARD EXTENDED SCALES. EMULATING OTHER INSTRUMENTS. NEW CHORDAL IDEAS THE ‘WRONG’ NOTES APPROACHING NEW SCALES .. ON THE CD. Afterwordoe a IntrofTuning Notes Altemate Picking (Examples 1.1-1.9) Alternate Picking (Examples 1.10-1.14) Alternate Picking (Examples 1.15—1.22) Alternate Picking (Examples 1.23-1.26) Alternate Picking [Examples 1.27-1.38) Alternate Picking (Examples 1.39-1.4) Sweep/Economy Picking (Examples 2.1-2.8) Sweep/Economy Picking (Examples 2.9-2.12) Sweep/Economy Picking (Examples 2.13-2.17) Legato (Examples 3.1-3.7) Legato (Examples 3.16-3 19} Legato (Examples 3.20-3 23) Tapping (Examples 4.14.4) Tapping (Examples 4.5-4 8) Tapping (Examples 4.9-4.12) Tapping (Examples 4.13-4.14) Tapping (Examples 4.15-4.18) Tapping (Examples 4.19-4.22) Eight-Finger Tapping (Examples 5.1-5.4) Eight-Finger Tapping (Examples 5.5-5 8) Eight-Finger Tapping [Examples 5.10-5.12) Eight-Finger Tapping (Examples 5.13-5.18) Eight-Finger Tapping (Example 5.23) Pick And Fingers (Examples 6.1-6.3) Pick And Fingers (Examples 6.4-6 5) Pick And Fingers (Examples 6.6-6.8) 28 29 30 EBSLSsESFKRSR Pick And Fingers (Examples 6 9-6 10) Extending The Fretboard (Examples 7.1-7.2) Extending The Fretboard (Examples 7 3-7.7) Extending The Fretboard (Examples 7 8-79) Extending The Fretboard (Examples 7.10-7.13) Extending The Fretboard (Examples 7.14-7.18) Extended Scales (Examples 8.1-8.4) Extended Scales (Examples 8.5-8.9) Emulating Other Instruments (Examples 9 1-9.5) Emulating Other Instruments Examples 9.6-9.7) Emulating Other Instruments (Examples 9.8-9.10) Emulating Other instruments (Example 9.11) Emulating Other instruments (Example 9.12) Emulating Other instruments (Example 9.13) Emulating Other Instruments (Example 9.14) Emulating Other instruments (Example 9.15) Emulating Other Instruments (Examples 9.16-17) Emulating Other instruments (Example 9.18) New Chordal Ideas (Examples 10.1-10.6) Goodbye Japanese Track (Demo 1) Japanese Track (Backing Track 1) Organ Track (Demo 2) (Organ Track (Backing Track 2a) Organ Track (Backing Track 2b) Fake Slide Guitar (Demo 3) Fake Slide Guitar (Backing Track 3)(On the CD, I've demonstrated each lick and example twice, first with a cick track at 80bpm and then at “ull speed! (whatever that is!), There wasn't enough space to record absolutely everything, so | decided not to bother with examples like “This is the sound of the G ‘major scale’ ~ I'm trusting your ability to read simple chord boxes and scale diagrams! The CD contains demonstrations of anything that requires @ particular playing technique, anything that might look rhythmically confusing on paper and anything where the sound you're getting out of the guitar is more. important the actual notes in the written example. ‘Asa bonus, I've thrown in a couple of backing tracks. at the end, along with an accompanying demo solo for each, (You'll ind these explained towards the end of the book.) Each track was designed to illustrate a specific ‘new direction’, but | guess you could play whatever you liked over them! CD produced, compllediedited and mastered by Phil Hiborne. Recordedimixed by Phil Hlborne at WM Studios, Essex, June 2002 \Webnfo: wew phihlborne.com or www philhilborne co.uk. Equipment: Guthrie Govan used PRS Guitars and amplification by Cornford, Effects used were by Lexicon and Yamaha. Guthrie Govan uses and endorses Comfard Ampitication All guitars played by Guthrie Govan. Bass on tracks 40-3, 46-7 and 50-3 played by Guthrie Govan Drums on tracks 50-52 played by Pete Alley. Bass on tracks 60-52 played by Seth Govan Drum and keyboard editing on tracks 48, 49, 53 and 54 by Phil Hiborne Phil Hilborne uses and endorses PRS Guitars, Picato Strings and Cornford Amplification © 2002 Guthrie Govan, this instructional content. Webjinfo: wrerw-quthriegovan com © 2002 Phil MilborneAWdale Music, this audio recording © 2002 Guthnie Govan and Phil Hilborne, all racks/backing racks,FOREWORD The aim of this book and its companion volume, Creative Guitar 1 Cutting-Edge Techniques, is to help any rock guitarist who feels stuck in a rut. They field all of the most common questions and problems I've encountered over years of teaching guitar. They explain the nuts and bolts of theory in an accessible manner that you can actually use. They explain how to practise efficiently and diagnose what's going wrong in your playing. They show you lots of new licks. They promote a self-sufficient approach to leaming to make sure you're well equipped to explore any aspect of playing that interests you, whether i's in the books or not In short, these two books are quite ambitious, so they can’t even pretend to constitute any kind of all encompassing guitar Bible, but my main goal was to get you thinking about your playing and point your Playing in some new directions \ hope | at least achieved that much, Above all, | hope you enjoy working through this book and its companion. Remember, learning about your instrument should never feel ike a chore; i's supposed tobe fun and rewarding! See you at the other end.In Part 1 of this series, | tried to explain the basics of music theory from a guitarist’s perspective and gave a breakdown of the most common technical problem I've seen in students’ playing over the years. One of the recurring themes throughout the previous book was the idea that accurate, efficient technique is the result of streamlining your playing motions, moving your hands as little as possible in order to achieve the required notes. Another was the concept of breaking down scales (and similarly intimidating morsels of music theory) in as many ways as possible, with the goal of turning them into valid improvisational tools rather than leaving them as dry technical exercises that don’t sound any good in 4 musical context. In this second book. | propose to show you how far you can go with these approaches. Now that you know the basic ideas, we can start having some real fun! I've started with an in-depth look at common techniques like alternate picking and legato, then applied the same ideas to more advanced techniques. There’s some stuff in here that you might associate with a specific musical style, but | would warn against taking these preconceptions too seriously ~ eight- finger tapping may well be popular with the heavy-metal contingent, but you can also use it to create piano-like chord voicings and cascading scale runs that sound great with a clean tone. Conversely, the idea of incorporating some right-hand fingers into your picking technique has long been considered the province of the country player, but it sounds equally effective when you step on the overdrive! Technique is a means to an end, and the broader your range of playing techniques, the easier it will be for you to figure out the best-sounding (and easiest!) way to realise all those great licks you hear in your head. Much of this book is based around the theme of expanding and extending your vocabulary, and so, in addition to all of the technical stuff, you'll also find a selection of extended scale shapes that cover an unusually wide range, some ideas on how to coax impossibly high notes out of your instrument, some tips on how to make ‘wrong’ notes sound deliberate and colourful. ..and lots of unusual scales from all over the world for those players who are bored with the sound of those ubiquitous pentatonics and modes of the major scale. One of my favourite chapters is the one about drawing inspiration from other instruments, and I've included some licks derived from instruments as diverse as the mandolin, the koto and the Hammond organ to get you into the spirit of things. This might seem like an ungrateful approach to your instrument after all, guitars sound great when you play them in the ‘normal’ way, so why would you want to sound like any other instrument? ~ but in defence of the idea, | would put it to you that many innovative players developed their distinctive styles using elements like violin-style vibrato, vocal-style phrasing, sax-style amp setting or organ-style double-stops. At the end of the day, it’s all music, regardless of which instrument did it first! The general message is that any guitarist who feels an urge to be more creative should start to think of himself or herself as @ musician who plays guitar rather than just a guitarist. The difference might seemCreative Guitar @): Advanced Techniques alittle academic, but the key to playing more creatively Is to consider music holistically, rather than slavishly adhering to what you think a guitar is supposed to sound like. This approach is what made it possible for Allan Holdsworth to develop his unique sound. The same approach has also given us inspirational players as 10 diverse as Danny Gatton, Tuck Andress, Tom Morello, Thurston Moore, Vernon Reid, Buckethead and The Edge. Who knows what effect it could have on your ‘own playing? Well, there's only one way to find out: check out the ideas laid out in the following pages and see where they take youea Le) Here's @ bold, sweeping statement for you: nearly al rock guitarists ere more proficient with their fretting hands than they are with their picking hands. In an attempt to rectify the situation, in this chapter I've compiled some classic picking exercises. Any guitarist can benefit from a little work on picking technique, even if you don’t like the machine-gun effect that can result from picking every note, you'll still find this stuff beneficial for the overall accuracy of your playing. ‘As you'll see later on, there are various approaches that you can use, but the simplest and most universally Useful is alternate picking, which basically means alternation between down- and upstrokes. Most players feel that there’s something more natural about downstrokes ~ | suspect that gravity might have something to do with this — but think of it this way: every time your hand executes two downstrokes, it must have performed an upward movement in between. Why not use that upward movement to pick a note rather than letit go to waste? ‘As a huge advocate of laziness, | put it to you that this immediately halves the workload of your picking hand! Quite aside from the efficiency of movement that it offers, alternate picking can also help with your timekeeping, Think of those funky Nile Rogers parts you hear on Chic records. These are based on a constant 16th-note pulse, but they're full of holes! Guitar parts like this sound the way they do because the picking hand doesn’t strike the string on every possible 16th-note division - it's the gaps that make it groove. However, you'll get the best results if you keep your hand moving up and down in a constant rhythm, as in this way you'll maintain your awareness. of where you are in the bar. Once you've got the right tempo and feel, youcan go onto automatic pilot. Your picking hand will find maintaining that motion easier than having to keep stopping and starting. All you have to do is put your picking hand in contact with the strings when you're about to play a note or chord and then take it away again when there's a gap coming up. If you're still not convinced, think of your picking hand as an engine. Letting it run at a constant speed \s preferable to starting and stopping itall the time, so that it's effectively ticking over in neutral, primed and ready to go whenever you want to use it. Here's another consideration: the more comfortable you are with that basic down-and-up movement, the better prepared you'll be for playing passages that involve a lot of string crossing. Whenever you have to change from one string to another, you suddenly have something extra to think about, and the last thing you want to do is lose your place in the middle of a bar. In this situation, the maximum possible peace of mind comes from the confidence derived from having your hand remember its basic down-and-up motion. If you have that, all you have to do is point it at the right string, Here are a few more pointers. Get in the habit of holding the pick between your thumb and forefinger. There are notable exceptions to this rule (more on this later), but adopting this grip facilitates a comfortable hand angle, which is a good start It's also a good idea to take a little time to analyse just how much of the pick is protruding from your thumb uMCreative Guitar (2): Advanced Techniques and-forefinger assembly. For precision playing, you'll ‘want to keep the exposed area of the pick toa minimum, Similarly if you wanted to write or draw something with any degree of accuracy, you'd hold your pencil near the sharp end rather than near the rubber. Why? Because this gives you more control: your hand's basic movements are occurring closer to the paper, so they're projected onto it with greater precision. This picking lark works in much the same way. On a related note, the more pick you have sticking out, the greater the danger of getting caught in the strings, 80 keeping that risk to a minimum would be another advantage of reducing that exposed area as much as possible. Here's something else to think about: how pointed is your pick? The importance of this criterion varies depending on whether you strike the string with the flat of the pick or the edge. As | said earlier, there are tonal differences between the two approaches using the flat of the pick (ie holding it parallel to the string) gives you a nice, full tone and not too much pick attack, whereas using the edge (with the pick at a 30-45" angle) gives you a scratchier tone with more top end. It seems to me that the second approach can sometimes give you that itle bit of extra definition when you're playing at extremely high speeds and a few extra beats per minute on the metronome scorecard, if that's the sort of thing you're into. If you use this kind of picking angle, you might like to think oft like this: picking a note basically entails getting the pick from one side of the string to the other, and your goal is to achieve this with {as small a movernent as possible. If your pick is angled, getting it all the way across the string using the sharp end obviously requires less movement than trying the same thing with the blunt end, Alll'm doing here is taking the idea to its logical conclusion. (As a teenager, | used to spend hours filing and sandpapering my picks to a point. Now I've discovered Dunlop Jazz lls and regained control of my life.) | would also make a case for using a relatively thick pick, for two reasons. * You'll get a wider dynamic range. Is easier to get ‘a quiet note with a hard pick than its to play a really loud note with a soft pick 2 * A sturdy pick only does what your hand tells it to do, while thinner ones have an annoying habit of flapping around when you attempt any sort of speedy picking. (To stretch my writing/drawing analogy a litle further, playing with a floppy pick is alot ike using a rubber pencil) To be fair, thin picks sound great for those strummy acoustic moments when you want to play energetically without sounding too harsh, 50 always consider your context. Here's a really important point: the actual movement cof your picking hand should come from your wrist. After all my harping on about efficiency, small movements and pencils, you might be forgiven for supposing that the most economical way of picking would be moving your thumb and forefinger in a ‘writing’ motion. In fact, this part of your hand is already fully engrossed with the important matter of holding onto the pick tightly enough to stop it slipping and changing the strength of its grip according to the tone or volume level you're trying to achieve. Expecting it to cope with moving the thing around at high speeds on top of these other important duties is asking for trouble - you're better off leaving it to the second-closest part of you: your wrist. There's ‘just one more thing...” (had to squeeze a Columbo reference in somewhere!). You should think about whether your picking approach works in all situations or only in your practice routine. In a gig setting, you'll most likely be standing up (unless your name is Robert Fripp] and perhaps moving around little, soit's important to ensure that your picking hand is anchored to the guitar in some way. | would recommend tying this in with your palm-muting technique - if there's a part of your picking hand that already spends most of its quitar-playing ite attached to unused strings, you've got yourself the anchorage you need and you should bbe able to run around the stage like a chicken at an Ozzy gig without missing a note. Alternatively, you might try leaning your palm on the bridge itself. This can yield some pleasing results when you're going for the Al DiMeola ‘mutola’ effect, especially if you're playing an instrument with the Gibson-style fixed-bridge-and-tailpiece combination, as the slope of the strings between the bridge and tailpiece encourages a nice, comfortable hand position.Please bear in mind, though, that this approach won't work on guitars with floating tremolo units, as on these instruments, as soon as your palm touches the bridge plate, the pitch of everything suddenly goes sharp. Another approach to the anchoring idea is exemplified by Michael Angelo, whose picking technique is the model of efficiency, (If you don’t believe me, check out his instructional video.) He chooses to rest his right-hand fingertips on the surface of the guitar's body underneath the high E string so that he can move his pick easily from string to string without having to alter the way he’s gripping it Here’s something else to consider: how open or closed is your picking hand? You might find that closing your hand into a fist makes it easier to move around, but players like George Lynch (of Dokken fame! claim that they can play certain passages faster with the unused digits of their playing hand fanned out. | personally prefer a fairly closed hand position, but it's important not to tense up your hand up too much. (Perhaps | shouldn't have used the word fistearler...) ‘A good general philosophy to adopt when honing ‘your picking technique is to ask yourself if your chosen hand position is sufficiently versatile for your needs. You might be particularly fond of throwing in pinched harmonics for that squealing sound or adding a little touch of the country player's pick-and-fingers approach. Can you move easily from one technique to another, without fundamentally altering your hand position? After all that detailed stuff, | feel obliged to mention some notable players who do things completely differently. Steve Morse, for instance, holds his pick between his thumb and index and middle fingers. | find that this approach restricts mobility and feels a little cumbersome, but it clearly works for Mr Morse, who can alternately pick pretty much anything. Similarly, my pointed-picks-are-best argument clearly doesn’t apply to George Lynch, Robben Ford or Pat Metheny, all of, whom choose to use the side of the pick rather than the sharp end. And of course my anchoring idea clearly doesn’t appeal to Eddie Van Halen, who plays stuff like the tremolo-picked melody in ‘Eruption’ with his right wrist sticking out, well away from the surface of the guitar and apparently not anchored to anything. When, | see footage of Eddie's picking hand, it amazes me Alternate Picking that it works at all, but you can’t argue with the results, he’s achieved with it. (Just to confuse the situation even more, Eddie uses a relatively thin pick and holds it between his thumb and middle finger, leaving his index finger flapping in the breeze. It looks odd, but, when you see how painlessly he switches between picking mode and tapping mode, you start to see a strange logic in his approach ) ‘The moral of this particular story would seem to be that there are no hard-and-fast rules. I've tried to explain all of the little details that help with my own picking, and | think most of itis fairy logical and scientific, soit you're struggling to get your picking up to scratch, you'll probably find something helpful in here. However, | accept that everyone does things slightly differently, and.as long as your picking hand is moving efficiently and feeling relaxed, | don’t think it really matters what it looks like Exercises Anyway, let's look at a few picking exercises to help You put all of this into practice. Example 1.1 should get you into the swing of things. It's a C major scale, and you'll note that the whole thing can be played using a strictly one-finger-per-fret approach. (I've included the picking directions for this one to show you what they look like. The squarer symbol of the two denotes a downstroke and the downwards- pointing arrow represents an upstroke. If these symbols seem the wrong way around to you, bear in mind that they were originally meant to look like the two ends of a violin bow. A violinist would start a downstroke with the squarer end of the bow - the ‘frog’ - and an upstroke with the eye-gouging end. The notation makes a litle more sense when you think Of it in this way!) You should start this exercise very slowly so that you can keep an eye on what your picking hand is up to ~ it might well be tempted to try two downstrokes in a row, for instance, which would completely disrupt the whole alternate-picking rhythm. You really have to adhere to the rules here, or you'll end up practising the wrong thing and you'll run into problems later on when you try to build up your speed. Try to ensure that all of the notes are of equal volume and that each one rings clearly for its full duration. This is particularly applicable to the last note on each string. 13Creative Guitar @): Advanced Techniques Example 1.1 Example 1.2, meanwhile, uses the notes from the scale of C major rearranged ina more interesting order known as a scale sequence. Have a look at the first, three bars. You'll see that, rather than simply running from the lowest note to the highest and back again, the scale is now grouped into clusters of four notes each. In other words, every beat contains a four-note mini-scale, each of which starts one note higher than, its predecessor. (The second half of the exercise. of course, uses the same idea in reverse.) This is good training for your picking hand, because there's a lot, of string crossing to negotiate. In addition, it sounds a little more interesting than Example 1.1! Example 1.2 187-810-7810 —81 101 One interesting point arises around the notes marked ‘3?’ in the music, You may prefer to use your ring finger here to fret these notes, in flagrant defiance of the hallowed one-finger-per-fret principle while sticking with your little finger would force you to use a larger area of your fingertip, because you'd have to fret the G and B strings in succession, rolling from one to the other. Try both fingerings in turn. The. first makes it easier to achieve perfect separation between the notes and also tends to sound cleaner, but there are times when you have no choice but to fret adjacent strings with a single finger, so you should ‘work on both. 7-9 794 1910-79109 101 moanAlternate Picking 10-97-1097 7 4010-9 10-9 7-10-87 8 og 0-8 10-7108 —7 5 Example 1.3 is a variation on the above that requires you to go up and down the scale in threes: Example 1.3 15Creative Guitar (2): Advanced Techniques. This exercise has the notes grouped in a triplet rhythm so that each group of three starts on a fresh beat Example 1.4, meanwhile, takes the same ‘threes’ idea but groups it in 16th notes (ie four per beat) so that this time the pattern isn’t quite as obvious to the listener — especially if you try accenting the first note of every beat! Hopefully, this one sounds a little less mechanical and predictable than Example 1.3: Example 1.4 Here’s another way of taking @ simple exercise and making it sound less obvious. If you compare Example 1.5 with Example 1.3, you'll see that the. notes are still grouped in threes but that this time the note groups that fall on even-numbered beats have been reversed: Example 1.5 16Alternate Picking And here’s yet another variation. Example 1.6 should examples. Even if you lack confidence in your music- remind you of Example 1.2 with all of the even- reading abilities, you'll have to agree that the stave at numbered beats removed. (Incidentally, | strongly _least shows you how the patterns are constructed in recommend that youfollow the written music forthese a much more graphic way than the tab ever could.) Example 1.6 Of course, there's more to life than going upin threes _—_and the start of the next. At some points ~ halfway and fours. Example 1.7 uses groups of six notes, so through bar 1, forinstance - you have to skip a string, there's @ bigger interval between the endof one group —_so you'll need to work particularly hard at these points. Example 1.7Creative Guitar (2): Advanced Techniques Now try something a little more confusing. Example 1.8 has notes ascending in groups of five, but rather than have five notes crammed into each beat, it sticks with the more familiar-sounding 16th-note rhythm, Example 1.8 1———- 781018107810 o———" Consequently, each new group of five notes starts one 16th note later than the one before it, creating an interesting rhythmic effect. You really have to concentrate to get this one right!