Tornado of souls solo coming along!

I didn’t get great picking footage of this but I’ve been learning the whole solo of Tornado of Souls. Three weeks ago I could barely play it with the 155 BPM track on youtube. Now I’m doing halfway decently at 198 - album tempo! That Ben Eller 200 Weekend Wankshop video is super, super helpful and entertaining.

This has really helped my USX motion. Before, it felt incredibly awkward but there’s some stuff in this solo that’s vastly easier if I just rotate my wrist out of my usual DSX and I’m getting better at it.

I guess there’s also a lot of rotating or double escape (or whatever we’re calling it) on the sweeps - which are still the hardest part for me. Particularly the big one right before those fast arpeggios.

Speaking of those, there’s footage of me playing those with DSX elsewhere on this forum. I switched to USX because it is indeed much easier to pull off.

that ending section is insanity. The whole thing is easier to play on my Les Paul but I lose the 24th fret so I just power through it that last bit.

anyone else learned this one already?

Other things to keep in mind:

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I haven’t learned this solo, but have been working on Symphony of Destruction and Killing Road over the last few years on and off.

Tornado of Souls is very difficult to play, the rhythm parts aren’t too bad, but the solo is another story!

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I think this is a great starting point @jjsnibor! You’ve got the timing (and the attitude!) down which is one of the most important things in my opinion. Next would be to clean up the hand sync in a few passages, then you are pretty much sorted!

Overall great job I’d say!

I agree with @aliendough that this solo is a tough one. I’d go as far as to say that even the various Marty replacements (Chris, Kiko etc.), great as they are, had a hard time pulling this off live (especially that last crazy bit with the 4ths pentatonic thingies - which often got replaced by their own noodly licks).

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totally. it’s a beast. Maybe I should do Symphony next and we can team up on it.

Thanks for the feedeback!

yes, my interested in nailing that insane ending is low.

Was there any spot you noticed that I particularly needed hand sync work? I’ve identified hand sync as my obstacle to truly accurate, fast playing.

I feel out of sync most those slippery arpeggios at 0:25 and the big one at 0:39.

There’s some string skipping in there, too, that I think I’m doing differently every time. Is there a resource on Cracking the Code for string skipping?

Boy I gave that solo a solid 2 months. I have no business trying to play it really but I really really wanted to be able to do. It’s insane. Kudos for this

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man… it’s tough. I mean, I’ve played it for an hour a day for 3 weeks and I’m only this good at it. how far did you get?

Pfft. I only made it to the first climb with that first big bend up at the 22nd fret I think. I suck. I can play the whole song no problem but fast picking solos isn’t my thing. That’s why I’m here. Haha

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man, I get it. That’s why I’m here, too.

The best thing I’ve learned from this site is that I don’t suck. I bet you don’t either and I hope you’ll do yourself the immense favor of believing in yourself.

I spent a long, long time not believing in myself and even putting myself down with negative self talk that led to negative self thought that led to self-defeatist behavior.

What a waste of time! I have had all the skills to play this solo like this for about 15 years, I just didn’t believe so I didn’t do.

If you’ll allow me to bold and give a tip - start believing and doing. You’ve already taken the first step to ending your belief that you suck by being here. No one here thinks you suck. We’re all here helping each other. Celebrating small victories. Focusing on little successes.

Forget the mis-steps, failures, false starts… What’re your little successes?

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Actually, listening again I didn’t find too many spots where this happens, but there’s definitely a couple of places like the famous 2-string arpeggios and some of the bigger arpeggios that come earlier.

I imagine the exact places will vary a bit take by take right? If so it’s probably just a matter of cleaning up the overall thing little by little. You already have the speed / timing down so that’s a great starting point!

We always talk about " starting fast", but since you are already fast you can try to alternate between the true tempo and something like 80-90% speed, see if it helps to clean it up?

If instead you find that the sync issues are always in the same places… I’d say good news! You can analyse those passages one by one and see if you spot what is causing the problem in each case.

EDIT: I also second this

Something we often suggest is to figure out something you can already do and exploit its potential to play some cool lines! Getting good at something (whatever it is) is a great first step to gain confidence.

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ok, good. I wondered about that. Blazing through those arpeggios at 198 wasn’t getting me anywhere. I’ve slowed down to try to really get them down.

Mostly, it’s left hand stuff. That bend at 0:26 is tough to nail and you hear a skip there. I’m thinking about bending with my pinky so I can have the ring finger ready to do that next arpeggio.

and the quick lick at 0:39 is sloppy. Playing it the same way every time will help but I need to decide what that way is first!

and yes - small victories build into large ones. I’ve really appreciated how encouraging everyone on this site has been. I think it’s easy for us to come in there ready to be humbled. Humility ain’t so bad but when we come in already discouraged, it’s hard to make progress or help ourselves. I was that way at first here but quickly realized no one is judging me. No one’s even paying attention at first when they don’t know you! This is the best thing I’ve done for my playing in decades and I appreciate all the research @troy and team have put into this. The concepts of slanting the pick and escaping the strings is so simple but truly code cracking if you’re already an intermediate or advanced player who’s been banging your head against the wall for years.

@tommo Still at it with this. I thought it sounded pretty good at tempo but ----- when I video-recorded and put it in slomo, I noticed that I’m not sounding the second note of each sweep on those famous two-string arpeggios.

Instead of F# D B D I’m playing F# D B x where “x” is just a muted string or no sound.

I also notice that my pick isn’t slanted down nearly as much as it feels like it. I’m a hard up slanter.

I wonder if an even sharper downward slant would help on these arpeggios?

ALSO - here’s the whole solo if you’re curious on my progress. I’ve cleaned up a lot of it:

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Cool stuff man. Ive seen marty twice recently within the last few years and even he doesnt play it like he originally did! And I think Uncle Ben mentioned this in his video if Im not mistaken

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without that 24th fret, it’s not possible to play the final pass through the form like he does on the album. I imagine Marty’s probably evolved in 30 years. haha!

Like Uncle Ben said, he just holds a long vibrato. Exactly what he did both times I saw him.

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Great progress! It’s coming along, keep pushing!

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Maybe I should adopt that. Such a lovely lick, though. I have a 7-string w/ 24 frets but the slightly larger scale to accommodate the low string makes much of this solo surprisingly more difficult. Especially those two string arps I’m struggling with.

Thanks, Bill! I will. Feels like the last 5% takes as much work as the previous 95%!

This is always the case and this is always where I give up. Have to work my mental game a bit I guess. :sweat_smile:

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Hey man definitely go for it! thats a great lick to have in the tool kit. I just dont get as worked up anymore about perfection to the T because even the best guys switch it up!

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