I think the D H D is the way it was played. I never caught that before, but listening to Jude Gold’s EVH review after his passing, he goes in length about how Eddie used that style for runs like I’m the one.
I’ve never seen Jude talk about the Down-Hammer-Down thing on the B string for these sextuplets before…do you have a link or a specific quote where he mentions this?
It was on his pod cast, No Guitar Is Safe. The best podcast out there IMO. Look up the EVH episode from a few months ago.
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(Edit as I had the pick stroke wrong.) He described the D H U perfectly, think of a swing rhythm. Q Triplet Tie Eighth. Then play with down up strokes, Dun da Dun da, now add the hammer in the middle. Dun Hum da.
He plays on his pod cast, as do the guests, so you can hear it perfectly. It makes the I’m the one fills a breeze. It’s also the same thing Nuno does. Add a little palm mute and you would never know.
Is it on YouTube?
I think Troy has proven how it was played above…or rather how Eddie made so many mistakes on the album version that he didn’t specifically execute it the way I’m trying to play it or however Jude thinks it is played. It seems obvious that Eddie likely intended to play all six notes, but he just couldn’t do it and the mistakes Troy pointed out happened in the course of attempting to pick all six notes.
Whatever anyone does to try to play it will be a compromise because Eddie never had a specific repeatable method to execute this…he couldn’t really execute it properly himself! I came up with the Down-Hammer-Down on the B string and Up-Down-Up on the high E string as a compromise because Troy’s analysis proved that Eddie didn’t execute it with any kind of pattern.
Ah, Ok…I found it. I don’t think he has that right for the parts in “I’m The One” that he is demonstrating. He definitely doesn’t have the open string lick from the beginning of the second solo from “I’m The One” and the first repeating lick from “Eruption” correct…Troy explained and proved that it was just one Upstroke on the high E and hammer-ons, pull-offs and silent hammer-ons for the rest of the notes.
Yeah, I saw Troy had it Hammer on from no where. I was referring to the ascending fills 679 lick during the verses. Those were the licks that really turned my head when I first heard them. I had never heard Ed blaze across strings like that.
Ok…he doesn’t have that part right either.
Hi Garb, small world; it’s me, the guy with the One Foot Out the Door lick 
I’d say chuck the non-cutaway, man! Life’s too short.
I am working on Spanish Fly a bit for the past month or so, and I have a sneaking suspicion EVH played the ascending sextuplets like this:
DHH, DUD
UHH, DUD
UHH, DUD
UHH, DUD
UHH, DUD
etc.
The first downstroke is just the comfortable way to begin the lick; the upstrokes on restarting the sextuplet are necessary to recover. Although I still often practice these as UDU, I think Ed played them as DUD for a few reasons:
- It can be tricky (but not impossible) to get the “inertia” started to begin the UDU as pointed by the guy who started this thread;
- I think the DUD “sounds correct” compared to UDU. If you play it both ways you may hear a difference in attack;
- The DUD picking pattern is derivative from the “I’m the One” ascending sextuplets all over that song (fingered 124, 124, etc. across the strings, not moving up two strings).
Anyway, the proof is in the pudding, so try it and see. I hope to put up my Spanish Fly soon. Rock on!
PS: I heard Jude’s podcast too so I listened for the alleged “DHU” patterns, but I really don’t hear them. If anyone disagrees, point me in the right direction.
Very cool…glad to have you here! Lots to be learned here for sure and probably the only place where serious, evidence based discussion of electric and acoustic popular guitar is the order of the day.
I will say that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the 3 notes on the high E string that complete the sextuplets are picked U-D-U. You probably haven’t seen Troy’s breakdown of what Eddie actually played and it is so loaded with mistakes and what Troy calls very accurately “airballs” on the album version of “Spanish Fly”. I think that Troy and I agree that Eddie likely intended to pick all of these notes with D-U-D on the B string and U-D-U on the high E string. But he could never execute this and what came out was something entirely different and very random.
What I’m trying to do here is to create a repeatable pattern that hits the highlights of what Eddie actually played. I used to practice playing the sextuplets as Eddie probably intended which was to pick all six notes with the pattern I mentioned. I tried to mimic some of the feel of the album version by very lightly palm muting the B string while playing the D-U-D notes on that string softly and then quickly lifting up the palm mute and picking the U-D-U pattern on the high E with heavy, non-palm muted full out attack. And that works to a degree, but when Troy pointed out what really went on for the recording, I began to try to find a different, repeatable way to mimic the feel of the random and mistake filled sextuplets on the record. Just read from the beginning of this thread and you will see where I re-posted Troy’s breakdown.
So now I’m experimenting with Down-Hammer-Down on the B string and U-D-U on the high E string.
But regardless of how you play these sextuplets, it is a BITCH to play this sequence on a non-cutaway Ovation classical as Eddie did and as I’m trying to do it now after getting one a few years ago. I used to play the tune on my non-cutaway Ovation steel string acoustic starting in 1986, but it was relatively easy since the body joins the neck in a much more comfortable way on that versus the classical.
That’s cool; I am still in doubt whether the E-string notes are DUD or UDU, but it seems like one or the other, and good to practice both ways 
To my ear, in looking at Troy’s waveform-type graphic, it looks like the allegedly “picked” notes on the B string are visible valleys actually decreasing in volume during the duration of the B-string triplet; this seems consistent with them being hammered and dying out in volume, not picked. I really don’t hear the pick connecting on those second and third B string notes. In contrast, the loud mountain peaks on the E string which sound audibly picked. I agree I hear a swipe or something in the middle of the sextuplet and the delay or reverb makes it harder to hear, and the fourth note of every sextuplet is usually an “airball”.
Then you can see exactly what Troy is talking about…he most likely intends to pick all six notes, but he can’t do it at that speed and what comes out is totally random and mistake filled so yes, as you say there are hammer-ons that come out which were originally intended to be picked and he whacks two strings at a time when he is intending to pick one…all kinds of mistakes. Thus what comes out is unrepeatable and virtually impossible to transcribe. All we can do is try to approximate what he does accidentally and randomly into a repeatable pattern that is not random or accidental, but that captures the feel of what came out accidentally and randomly.
The giveaway that the last three notes of the sextuplets are picked U-D-U is that first note…there is no mistaking the loud POP that comes only from the Upstroke that begins the sequence on the high E…And then the Down-Up continues the alternate picking sequence. That POP cannot be achieved with a Downstroke. So really the only relative certainty of this sequence that can be put into a repeatable pattern that captures the feel of what he likely intended and most of what he executed on the high E is this U-D-U pattern.
Could be, man. I actually feel like when I’m playing it I actually get more “pop” out of DUD on the high E, and I believe it’s from the extra oomph pushing through with the downstroke and the side of my thumb slightly muting the string. One last thing: I feel like on watching Troy’s LWAN clip when Ed starts the ascending sextuplets you can see Ed’s hand play a single downstroke for the B string, and then a DUD for the high E, what do you think? Anyway, the quest continues! Will check back soon! Rock on! 
Try slanting your pick as Eddie usually did when he would play these passages. The POP on the Upstroke should be apparent already, but the pick slant might help you hear it. It certainly helps to play these licks in my opinion:
Those “popping” Upstrokes are everywhere in Eddie’s playing. You can really hear them in the 1979 Steven Rosen interview audio, especially when he plays the A major scale exercise. When you are using light gauge strings and a Fender Medium celluloid pick, there’s no mistaking it!
WhammyStarScream and myself have been talking about these sextuplets in the related thread about the drum/guitar riff from “Girl Gone Bad” so I thought it would be good to highlight that discussion here: Van Halen “Girl Gone Bad” Drum and Guitar Riff - Playing Technique - The Cracking the Code Forum (troygrady.com)
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Also, the wildly inaccurate and just plain horrible LickLibrary series of lessons from the UK has reared it’s head again…this time with laughable attempts at transcribing the ‘Van Halen II’ album.
Watch the full trailer here and see exactly how NOT to play the “Spanish Fly” sextuplets at the 2:23 mark: https://www.licklibrary.com/store/courses/classic-albums-van-halen-ii
This is a very good example of why straight up Down-Hammer-Hammer on the B string and Up-Down-Up on the high E doesn’t really work.