Jimmy Page staple lick--ideas on mechanics?

Playing Technique
#1

There’s a common type of phrase in Jimmy Page’s solo playing that seems pretty clearly pattern-based, and almost definitely a case of mechanics driving the music choices. It’s usually played on a quick, repeated loop, covers three strings, and usually incorporates a bend on the lowest string (usually G) and a pull-off in the descending portion of the phrase on the middle string (B). A typical example of it might be something like:

e|-----------------12----------------
B|------------12-----15p12-------
G|–14b16-------------------------
D|------------------------------------ (repeat)
A|------------------------------------
E|------------------------------------

It’s not an especially wild or challenging phrase by CTC standards, but I’m still interested in how Page specifically would pull it off. Is anybody here familiar with a video clip where he’s playing something in this style with hands visible enough to analyze? Or, alternatively, has anybody got any insights into how he’s playing this lick?

I’ve got my own approaches that sound good enough for my personal purposes, but it’s an interesting idiosyncrasy all the same. I think he’s likely doing it with a sort of “burying the pick” sweep-type action.

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#2

He would go down, down, up, down, maintaining an appearance of alternating motion when factoring in the bend and pull-off. I’m sure there’s some swiping etc involved as well. Great footage of his soloing here, where he plays that sort of lick more than once.

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#3

Cool, but just to be sure that I understand. There are four types of “down,” I think?

  • from trapped, down, stay trapped
  • from trapped, down, become free
  • from free, down, become trapped
  • from free, down, stay free

Which ones does he actually do? Is it Dt, tDf, fUf, fDt? Or is it something else that has that D D U D shape? It’s not that I’m curious about Jimmy in particular, it’s that I’ve convinced myself that I no longer have any idea what “down” or “up” mean any more without more context and that CtC’s conversations are fuzzy because the term “down” and “up” collectively are 8 concepts and not 2.

#4

Well, there’s whatever he did, and then whatever you might try that works best with your technique. I doubt he ever played this sort of thing totally free of swipes/displacement - worrying about that stuff just isn’t rock n roll. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Sure, but few players, even among the most famous of virtuosos, can just shift between all of those at speed - most are limited. The first thing you mention is a neutral, trapped motion (I’d argue Paul Gilbert leaned in this way at one time), second is DSX, third is USX, fourth is DBX. I think the general suggestion around these parts nowadays, for a lick like this, would be all DSX for the downstrokes, using RDT a la the Primer lessons, with one DBX pickstroke for that outside upstroke on the high E.

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#5

I love this so much! Especially the italicized.

And most that are, simply wouldn’t care either way.

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#6

My point is that the up/down descriptions fail to describe what he actually did. Failure at such a fundamental level is shocking, IMHO, it suggests the notation is broken—and it is.

#7

Great clip! Haven’t seen that before. Man that is some proto metal downpicking right there.

Jimmy is using reverse dart dbx wrist technique, like Andy Wood. It’s not like single escape techniques where you need to worry about which pickstrokes do the escaping, organize the lines, and so forth. In the dbx style, scapes are mixed subconsciously, and you let the wrist joint figure it out. It really isn’t necessary to plot out the different motions the wrist is making. Instead, you focus on attaining the base form and anchor points, and moving only the hand. That’s really it.

That may sound simple, and it is. But it took a long time to figure out what the various forms actually are, since there are multiple of them, why they work, how to teach them and troubleshoot it, and so on.

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#8

I do this lick one of two ways depending on the sound:

Sweep 3 strings, then hammer from nowhere to the B and repeat

OR

down, down, (not swept) up, hammer from nowhere, repeat

The common approach for both is the hammer from nowhere to the B. I copped this from learning some Gary Moore licks where he does something similar. It’s the only way I know how to get some of those odd number of note per string pentatonics fast (I’m a USX player).

The sweep version is a little “messier” sounding rhythmically, but it can get the lick pretty fast. The other version is more articulate, but phrased like two 16ths and a 16th triplet.

#9

The up/down notation cannot describe the motion.

  • down, down, up, down is not compatible with 100% DSX.
  • so DSX is only going on sometimes.
  • your above statement doesn’t answer OP’s question—nobody has, and nobody will, I suspect.

Why? Nobody even has the ability to express what Jimmy did in writing without turning to lots of prose, and the up/down notion used here is severely broken as it obfuscates everything and turns what should be less than a sentence into fuzzy paragraphs that nearly always don’t contain the answer. CtC can do much better but needs to realize that up/down is not enough.

#10

With DBX it’s a little simpler to convey though isn’t it?

You could just notate it down like this and say “Use a DBX motion”, RDT or DT doesn’t matter and the pickstroke is always free so you don’t have to convey that.

With the knowledge that Page is a DBX player provided by @Troy I would suggest @Achilleus play it like this if he wanted to play it like Page (I assume he’s using the pull off so the pickstrokes don’t flip with each repetition of the lick but you could experiment with that as well)

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Trying to convert these types of blues/rock licks with lots of 1nps into single escape always drove me crazy as they just aren’t constructed that way a lot of the time :grin:

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#11

Absolutely right! What you posted is 100% clear with zero ambiguity.

If somebody plays it with sweeps, etc., it’s great to be able to notate it with just as much clarity as you just provided for the all-DSX approach.

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#12

Sorry if I’m misunderstanding! I think you’re asking about a way to notate whi[ch type of escape motion is being made for each note. Let me know if that’s correct.

If so, what I’m saying is there is no practical value in knowing this. At least not for the reasons most people ask. We get variations on this question from time to time, and it’s usually because people are trying to play a particular phrase or to learn a certain technique. But this type of notation would not be a good way to do that - especially for dbx wrist technique.

The best way to learn most techniques is to understand the overall form and type of motion required, allowing the motor system to micromanage the motions being made. Here’s just as one of many examples I can show you:

You’ll notice that the notes on the E string have more of a USX appearance than the B and G string notes, which look more like DBX. This is not intentional, and it’s not something I can feel when playing the phrase. All I am doing here is maintaining a specific form, and moving the hand back and forth in a way that feels easy. That’s it.

Also, when we film other players doing this phrase, they don’t always appear to make the sequence of motions I’m making. In situations where no specific escape is needed - like the E string - you’ll see different motions being made when you film players.

Ergo I think for most practical purposes that people ask us about, they will not be helped by trying to imitate escape motions they read about in notation. They would be best served by knowing which technique is being used, and trying to perform that technique using general instructions for doing so.

Sorry for the confusion! When I say DBX I don’t necessarily mean the player always makes a DBX pickstroke on every note. Andy Wood doesn’t do this, for example. However his form permits him to make DBX pickstrokes when necessary. We don’t have a good word for “technique which can do DBX but doesn’t always do so”. We sometimes say “mixed escape” for this. For ultimate clarity, that’s probably how I’d describe what Andy and many other players do. The arpeggio example above is another good example of this. DBX but really only when needed.

In the Jimmy Page example, I can tell from the overall form and appearance of the motion, and the line being played that this is likely a mixed escape wrist technique. That’s really all I meant. The exact motions being made, nobody can know without Magnet type video.

Either way I think your point is mostly correct, that you just need to know what overall technique or picking style is being used to play something. Then you follow the instructions for doing that technique. There is very little practical value in trying to notate escapes for each note, even if you can see these things happening in slow motion video.

Edit: Knowing what picking style is being used, knowing what escape it is and how this influences what is being played – this is all critically important. It’s more from the macro level and not at the notation level.

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#13

I think he indeed is asking about exactly this - notating escape on a note to note basis. There is another thread below somewhere where this exact thing was pitched.

Not only is not very practical, it would just get messy and can be a little redundant with what is already available in existing notation vocab.

Of course, but even at the macro level it can go both ways (helpful or hindrance) and it depends on what the person decides to do with that understanding. You can have an excellent understanding of this on the macro level, and still be compelled to toil into perpetual frustration over it.

The same is true for the opposite extreme.

#14

Yes, indeed, this is missing and makes it impossible to clearly notate what somebody is playing.

Let me give you three critical examples:

  • One can notate how they decided to play a piece for future reference.
  • One can notate how somebody else decided to play a piece.
  • One can point to things that are extremely specific with clarity.

These reasons are of massive importance.

This is irrelevant. Notation is about describing what happened, or what one has annotated, etc. CtC basically cannot annotate anything, and this is a glaring failure, as it is presumably the go-to place for plectrum mastery.

Extra high-level comments are nice, but it’s trivial to extract the player’s ideas by looking at property annotated TAB. I claim, however, that the high-level comments will fail to accurately predict everything for most players, and it’s impossible to give details where they deviated from their standard practice, etc.

More specific might be, “he regularly does tDf and fUt, with the occasional fDf and fUf when appropriate or on a mandolin,” or whatever the case is for Mr Wood. I’m not saying to use that particular notation, but there must be a way to clearly refer to the eight individual strokes or confusion is inevitable, and I believe that advanced students are regularly confused (per the above Jimmy Page comment), not to mention beginning students.

#15

Man that sounds just like sammy hagar with van halen

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#16