Far Beyond the Sun lick

This shift is on the second string not the third, watch the video in slow motion.

I’ve nailed it :rofl:

Haha!! Is that a Reb Beach signature???

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No, Mayones Hydra. I would love a Reb Beach sig though!

I saw this topic the other day and tried to play the lick but really struggled. I realised that the problem (for me at least) was that it’s not a lick you can practice constantly as it doesn’t cycle. Thus, I made a larger ascending-descending version of the lick that allows you to loop it and get a better feel for it and also provides practice for ascending DWPS practice. This has certainly worked for me now I can get it cleanish at 160 BPM after warming up from 100 BPM in 10 BPM increments to get the sync working. The full exercise (transposed to A harmonic minor = E phyrgian dominant) is:

Low E: 12d
A: 11d (swept), 12u, 14d, 15u
D: 12d, 14u, 15d
G: 13d (swept), 14u, 16d, 17u
B: 15d, 17u, 18d
High E: 16d (swept), 17u, 16p
B: 18d, 17u, 15d, 13u
G: 16d, 14u, 13p
D: 15d, 14u, 12p
A: 15d, 14u, 12d, 11u
Low E: 12d (starting note, loop from here)

I hope this will exercise will come in useful to the members here too! Cheers.

Resurrecting an old thread. Is there a consensus on the “correct” way to play this lick? I’m having a hard time getting the kind of articulation I want if I do 13-14-13 on the E string and then 15-14-12 on the B string. That start just feels weird, but if that’s how it’s played I’ll keep cracking at it.

That’s how I do it. :slight_smile:

I’d recommend using the first two fingers on the high E if you aren’t already doing that. I hadn’t done that in the past, but then I realised I was visualising the wrong scale box, and that the scale on that string is 13-14-(16) for a 1-2-(4 or 3) fingering.

That matters because in 6 bars time your going to be playing a variation in the fast descending lick:

and it make more sense to my brain to play it the same way every time. It also pops up a bit later in a few places of course.

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I see what you’re saying. Today I started playing it 14-13-10 on the E string and then 14-12 on the B string, which feels really good and fluid and I can even pick every note if I want except the one legato note on the second to last string. But I haven’t gotten to the longer descending lick yet and yeah I see that this might be a problem since that fingering won’t really carry over. I’m bummed now! Ha

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Here’s my take on it; though it’s not the best take :joy:

I used to do that too! I gotta tell you I had a heck of a time switching it for precisely the same reason @Big_Jim_Slade mentioned eventually.

Tip about that longer descending lick you will encounter, keep your index finger planted and slide along the string when you encounter it, it’s what Malmsteen does and it really helps speed up the learning curve on it. I wish I was more attentive to his left hand when I started learning this tune.

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That sounds really good actually! The thing I’m kind of struggling with now is more like mentally having the whole lick in sync. For the shorter one I feel like the beats and landmarks are all firm in my mind and it flows, but when I do the longer one my brain can’t really tie it all together from a rhythm standpoint for some reason, which messes up the flow. But I suppose that might be more of a practice/chunking thing where eventually certain note landmarks will kind of tie together into a larger mental map so that it starts to make rhythmic sense. Thanks for the tips!

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Hey thanks. Yes the chunking will help, I revised this track after almost two years, it took me a while to lock it down again, haven’t recorded an update as I’m working on the rest of the solos. It’s hard to lock in with the beats in the heat of the moment, you really got to go beyond the phrase and start to feel it, that takes some doing, but it happens fairly quickly once you have the phrase fluid.

What I find challenging is lots of the phrases are similar but with minor changes, turn arounds etc, I truly think he’s improvising on a structure he’s already worked out on these. These mechanics of his are quite incredible, he can really play freely. I just heard his new track, same thing, minor changes on an old theme but the fluidity is ridiculous. I think we need dedicated threads to collectively tear down his playing through changes, chord choices track by track to get more from each of them.

Keep pushing!

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