I'll see the light tonight breakdown!

Playing Technique
#1

So this is a line (just before the solo) I have been practising for ages and I still don’t get it right. I know that the right hand isn’t the problem becuse I can play it even faster with only right hand.

(1:53)

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Has anyone here had a problem with that lick and is it considered a big challenge or not?

I have tried changing left hand position and finger placement, nothing seems to work for me. It’s strange but i find single string playing more challenging a lot of the times that playing over several strings.

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#2

I think the solution could be Chunking alone in smaller units of 2.4 or 6 to better handle a long phrase like this.
All the information can be found in the Volcano Seminary …
Or in the Troy series on YouTube.
Thanks to chunking I improved quickly and these lines on a single string are easier for me to play.
As if they were the train wagons.
Sorry for my bad English. I normally speak Spanish
The video that explains the chunking process (4:08)

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#3

I used to try and play this segment back in the day (around 1988) - I found it a endurance thing. My fret hand used to be knackered by the end of the single string part - and then totally mess up the descending string change part :slight_smile:

I’d say - yup it’s a tricky one at that speed and if your using ur pinky on your fret hand.

What’s your problem with it?

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#4

It might help to change fingers on your left hand. I used to play it strictly with my pinky, but watching Yngwie, he plays with his i m r for a lot of it.

#5

Oh man… that ring-finger-to-pinky motion is definitely tricky to get down.

On top of that, 3NPS makes us want to chunk in groups of 3; when this lick is in groups of 4 sixteenths.

I would focus on getting the left hand in sync with the right hand; lots of times the pinky wants to go 10-12-13-12 instead of 10-13-12-13. I know this isn’t the best way to practice for some people, but trying to push yourself with a metronome is always a good starting point.

Also, a great song to practice with this EXACT motion is “Sea of Lies” - Symphony X. Their guitarist Mike Romeo borrows a lot from Yngwie’s playing, and it shows

#6

As you noticed If you can’t do it with your fretting hand alone, at least fretting the notes at speed, you wont be able to pick it in sync either. This lick BY FAR is a fretting hand lick rather than a picking lick in terms of difficulty as pedal licks on single strings indeed are some of the easiest licks you can pick and are in fact just a straight up trem with the pick hand. Take a look at your fretting hand as a culprit and introduce some appropriate hammer-on pull-off exercises. It in itself is a great freting hand exercise, maybe only pick the first note of each hand position to make it more of a legato exercise for practice. It really doesn’t get more complicated than hammer-on, pull offs here and if it helps, you can try an alternate fingering but remember Yngwie has big hands and doing say, a 1-3-2-3 fingering as opposed to a 1-4-3-4 may be harder for some on lower frets and 25.5" scale guitars.

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#7

I would add that in my own progression as a player, I started with Rising Force and the tab book. For my circle of friends, it was can you play the Evil Eye breakdown before the solo. The tab book has it on the B string as a series of pull offs, but most agree it’s played on the E string and picked. I learned the tab, and could play it using pull offs then I tried to pick it and found that I could with a few solid attempts. The point being, the Evil Eye lick is very foundational to his style and coordination between hands. It rolls off the left hand a little easier, so it might help you with learning to synchronize your hands.