Nitro - Freight Train cover taught by Troy G

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#1

I followed the Troy Grady Master in Mechanics picking program and I went from good to great when it comes to my picking ability. Notice how when I’m playing at high speed, my right hand is seamless. It’s almost like a violin with a bow. There’s no stopping, pauses or slowing down. It’s because once you understand the algorithm for certain licks, and reduce the friction in your picking hand, the most difficult licks become easy! I followed the freight train break down from Troy the best I could but couldn’t help and get off track and do my own thing for some parts.

Troy, maybe you can chime in here and give me some pointers?

I think I got it down capturing the style of Michael Angelo Batio but adding in a little more shred! The guitar is an EBMM JP15 and I’m playing through a Kemper.

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#2

Crazy speed! You make it look pretty easy…

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#3

awesome, super smooth! Love to see some more playing man. You got dsx locked down and that sweeping is great.

Looked at you other posts, are you doing dsx or usx? You hand position looks dsx but it could be usx?

#4

Absolute insanity, love it, great playing! :smiley:

#5

Killer :fire: I don’t think you need any pointers, just keep melting faces :love_you_gesture:

#6

Is this on the site somewhere?

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#7

I need to make a correction. There is no tab but Troy broke it down lick by lick. I was a huge fan of the Speed Killls instructional videos by MAB so his playing style is very natural for me and I figured out my version of Freight Train by ear.

#8

I am using DSX but I’m close to the neutral position with just a slight DSX angle. I switched picks from the Jazz III sized dunlop tortex 1.14 to the dunlop Petrucci flow 2.0 picks and I was able to get closer to a neutral position. I do use USX also(not nearly as frequently), just not in this song. Being able to combine and switch on the fly from DSX to USX, sweeping, odd groups of notes (5’s) and economy picking is a challenge but once you combine all of them, it opens a lot of doors.

#9

Thank you. And I’m making it look easy is because I have made it easy on myself. I learned a lot from the MAB speed kills instructional series because he emphasizes maximum efficiency by eliminating all unnecessary movement while playing. Slash might look cool when he’s playing moving his hands all about, but if he wanted to play this solo, he would have no choice but to eliminate all the unnecessary movements and fire up the Lamborghini!

#10

Wow a blog post from '05? We’re going retro :slight_smile: When I get some time I’ll have to go through all this. I didn’t even realize Troy had an understanding of DSX back then and I know there was a period where MAB was a mystery to him. Didn’t last long of course, since Troy cracks everything lol Maybe I just have my time periods mixed up I just though '05 was WAY early for his understanding of how MAB did things. Either way, thanks for the link.

Yep, I’m sure that’s the secret. Since I don’t have the time to slow this way down and inspect each string change, can you tell us if this is 100% DSX or are there some outlier phrases? Just asking because I know the stuff I’m best at and can play the “easiest” is when it’s all single escape playing.

#11

Nice playing! And that Freight Train article is how I originally found out about Troy, before any of the CtC stuff.

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#12

This solo is 100% DSX and all alternate picking. It is the basic 3 note per string, mirror patterns that MAB and Paul Gilbert are famous for. Mirror pattern is a term I made up for my students because I take the 6 strings and put them each in a group of 2 giving me only 3 strings to think about now. “EA” - “DG” - “Be”.

With each group of strings, for example if you play 12 14 16 on the E, then you will mirror that pattern on the A string. It simplifies patterns for playing at high speeds so I don’t have to think as much, I can just pick away…

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#13

There should be a “How did you find Troy?” thread on here. For me, it was YouTube suggesting the video on Steve Morse.

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#14

I’d love to understand this in further detail, would you mind saying a bit more about it?

I also love your playing, it is ferocious, you have the keys to the Lambo!

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#15

I think I get it, but I’d like more info too :slight_smile: I think in my mind I may have called these “symmetrical” shapes. My question would be what happens to the shapes that don’t conform to this. For example, the first 6 notes of the Ionian mode, the Mixolydian mode, the Aeolian mode, and the Locrian mode are all “mirrors”.

C Ionian (first 6 notes only)
-A|--------8-10-12|
-E|-8-10-12-------|

C Mixolydian (first 6 notes only)
-A|--------8-10-12|
-E|-8-10-12-------|

C Aeolian (first 6 notes only)
-A|--------8-10-11|
-E|-8-10-11-------|

C Locrian (first 6 notes only)
-A|--------8-9-11|
-E|-8-9-11-------|

But the first 6 notes of the Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian are not mirrors. Do you just avoid the non-mirror shapes and make all your licks from the tabbed example above (but distributed to the “DG” and “Be” strings as well)? I can see how that would reduce “thinking” dramatically.

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#16

Symmetrical is correct. You have the spacing correct, but that is only one position. For example, if I was to play in the key of Metallica(E), I could do an ascending lick like this, while keeping the finger spacing the same, only changing position on each pair of strings to remain in the same key by only changing the octave. It would be the Aeolian pattern if I was starting on my root note to keep the shred pattern in key while still making it useable to mesh with an E pentatonic. While that is a snippet of a lick and not the entire lick, the rules remain the same for the next part of the progression. The pattern does not change if you change key. It remains the same regardless of key!

e-----------------------------------------------------------------17-19-20–
B-----------------------------------------------------17-19-20--------------
G---------------------------------------14-16-17----------------------------
D--------------------------14-16-17-----------------------------------------
A-------------12-14-15------------------------------------------------------
E-12-14-15------------------------------------------------------------------

Think of the patterns in spacing, octaves and string groups rather than scale names and theory to simplify to make them easy to navigate at high speed. Half step or full step, two strings grouped together, same key and same notes just one octave up or down. It makes things so much easier to think about when playing fast. I regularly find people are so fixated on playing notes and scales to the “rules” of music they bypass the obvious for playing quickly and efficiently.

If I wanted to extend the pattern it would go as follows

First Octave:

e-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
B------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A-------------12-14-15-------------14-15-17--------------15-17-19-
E-12-14-15-------------14-15-17-------------15-17-19--------------

Second Octave:

e-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
B------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G---------------14-16-17-------------16-17-19-------------17-19-21-
D–14-16-17--------------16-17-19-------------17-19-21-------------
A-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Third Octave:

e--------------17-19-20--------------19-20-22--------------20-22-24-
B-17-19-20--------------19-20-22--------------20-22-24--------------
G-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • There are 3 finger spacings - Full step & Half Step - Half Step & Full Step - Full step and Full step
  • There are 3 Octaves of the pattern
  • There are 3 groups of strings (EA DG Be) the pattern is played across

This keeps a pattern that can be played ridiculously fast and sound awesome, very simple! 3 3 3. Simplfy and fly!

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#17

Thank you. Please refer to my most recent response to joebegly.

#18

Makes sense, thanks for that in depth explanation. It messes up the cool branding of your “3’s” concept (well…sort of), but I think I’d get even more out of this by starting back one mode. Your examples are playing Aeolian, Locrian, Ionian. If you start on Mixolydian you’d have 4 finger spacings/shapes, where the first and last are actually mirrors of each other :slight_smile:

There are 4 finger spacings - Full step and Full step, Full step & Half Step - Half Step & Full Step - Full step and Full step

e----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A----------10-12-14-----------12-14-15-------------14-15-17--------------15-17-19--
E-10-12-14-----------12-14-15-------------14-15-17-------------15-17-19------------

Thanks for this though I’ve got some cool ideas on how to use this in my own playing. Some tweaks to the arrangement easily DSX-ify the whole thing too. You’ve inspired me :wink:

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#19

I’d love to see you post more.

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#20

I would too!!! I was crazy busy learning 32 songs for an 80’s cover band but since I got that over with, I’ll be back to doing my own thing again more often. I’ll probably post a video tomorrow.

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