Serrana Arpeggios

Playing Technique
#1

Hey folks, I hope you are all safe and keeping well! (Sorry, although this song/topic was discussed in a thread 4 years ago, it was only mentioned in the passing, and I was reluctant to necro that thread because of the amount of notifications it could cause.)

I have been learning the Jason Richardson version of Serrana using this tab (it was kindly made available for free on this page (Adam Koopmans is creating High-Quality Original Guitar and Vocal Music Education Content | Patreon) so hopefully posting it is ok - I can remove it immediately if anyone would like me to!)

Serrana - Jason Richardson (Jason Becker).pdf (128.9 KB)

I was just wondering if any of you have learned it and if you ever found a way to finger it the Jason Richardson way (trying to eliminate barring where possible)? I learned this song as a kid and could play it up to speed using those old banana finger arpeggio shapes but when I saw Jason play it, I realised how much cleaner it sounds when you donā€™t finger it that way - but I just canā€™t quite work out the fingerings he is using - I would be totally happy to pay for any help!

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#2

Didnā€™t know Jason did this, very interesting!

I havenā€™t worked on it myself but I know Rusty Cooley isnā€™t a fan of barred sweeps and tries to avoid them where possible. He has an instructional that someoneā€™s put on YouTube called ā€œArpeggio Madnessā€ where he goes over a few of the fingerings he uses if I remember correctly. Might be of use to you! :slight_smile:

#3

Oh! Useful - thank you! I will check this out right away!

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#4

I wouldnā€™t be able to play this, but I checked YouTube and he is playing it there. Have you seen this? Could slow down the video on the parts where you run into the barring thing and see what he is doing

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#5

Iā€™m not even 1% the guitarist that Jason Richardson isā€¦but at least I can access the frets I want without the numbers being written on the neck lol!

Jk :slight_smile: thatā€™s actually a pretty cool looking guitar. Cool etude too! Iā€™ll never be able to play it though, so Iā€™m not even going to attempt it.

#6

In case youā€™re interested, he has some instructional material on his site.
His sweeping lesson ($9.99) for example shows the fingerings he uses for various positions.
I bought it not long ago, some good stuff, not groundbreaking, but interestingā€¦

#7

Oh man, so much stuff here to check out guys - thank you for this!!! I will try watching that video in super slow motion lol

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#8

:rofl: I loved this comment haha

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#9

You could book a lesson with Mathew Mills. Heā€™s the one who taught Jason this stuff.

#10

All joking aside, That was based on one of Jason Beckers signature Peavey guitars.

image

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#11

He explains his method in this video.

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#12

Richardson is so crazy with his speed. I often think things like this are spead up, but itā€™s more than likely because I feel like Iā€™m trying to run in a nightmare compared to them. Itā€™s hard to believe some people can be so fast with guitar. Really amazing.

#13

Hey! Iā€™ve been working on that in particular after getting a copy of his sweep picking primer and watching the above video - I went ahead and merged that tab with the Serranna tab I already had in Guitar Pro. The transcribed tab included a few mistakes and ghost notes so I scrubbed it and adjusted them to the intended arpeggio shapes and added Jasonā€™s typical fingerings to it. Jason Becker - Serrana Arpeggios (ver 2).gp (16.0 KB)

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#14

Iā€™m curious how much cleaner I could get it if I can get those fingerings up to speed - this is where Iā€™m at with the standard fingering from the old tab I had - Iā€™m nowhere near full speed with Jasonā€™s fingerings yet. Iā€™m not sure the major box shape pattern he uses is really worth getting down, maybe. But itā€™s very awkward.

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#15

Dude! I am just about crying just now (pathetic I know but itā€™s been an annoying day - I have one of those brains where I always get frozen up by paralysis by analysis lol) I couldnā€™t decide which version of Serrana to try and learn - the one by Jason Richardson or one that is closer to how the original was played. I wanted to try and get rid of some of the mistakes in the Jason Richardson transcription but didnā€™t know how to do it. This tab you made is absolutely amazing!!! :disappointed_relieved:

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#16

That was a great take!

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#17

Oh hey, I really hope you are ok and having a nice week - I just wanted to thank you again because I am almost finished learning this song - I just have to speed it up a few more % and I am almost at Jason Richardson speed in his video. Sorry to be a pain - I have already asked you so much and you have already helped me so much (if there is ever anything I can share or do back in return, please just ask!!). I was just wondering if you ever learned the last part? Bars 26 - 28? I was just wondering if you play them the way they are in the tab of if you ever tweaked them? This is the only bit I havenā€™t got down so far xd

#18

Hey, I havenā€™t really messed with that end section, I did pick up the intro picking run and the diminished section right before his added ending, one thing I corrected was that he uses his ring finger more in the diminished sweeps - on the G string itā€™s index and ring and I was using index pinky on the E, G and A strings which was tiring me out too much - switching that has taken a while to break the habit but itā€™s helped a lot.

One super interesting thing I realized about how he plays alternate picked runs - try slowing down the intro portion to 25% speed on the youtube video - he has wayy more slides in there than I realized. The first five notes are fingered but the 6th one is a slide! Thatā€™s totally missed in the PDF you have, and looking at the end portion, slow it down and make notes of where the slides are, it makes way more sense than looking at the tab alone since it comes across as having weird stretches or jumps, and he doesnā€™t have those crazy giant Loomis/Gilbert hands.

Iā€™ll try messing with it some and see where I get. @kanzenseiha1

#19

Just looked at this, and my brain hurts. If you know this all by memory kuddos. That is insane. :smiley:

#20

:sweat_smile: I started trying to learn it like 15 years ago and have come back to it on and off over the years so I had a good head start lol