Videogame-inspired hard rock? Hammer-ons and pull-offs? I got ya covered!

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#1

Hey all,
After working on my picking for so long (to the point that now it’s even my job :slight_smile: ), In the last few months I thought that it would be nice to do some noodling based on hammer-ons and pull-offs instead!

So, I wrote and recorded a track for it! Gotta admit my legato skills were a bit rusty, so I ended up recording the faster sections separately (yes, another option would be to practice, but who has time for that!). The ending of the solo in particular took quite a few attempts! Other than that, the lead guitar is mostly recorded as long takes where I cherry-picked and combined the better executed bits.

I did not film the recording of the harmony & rhythm parts this time because, again, time :smiley:

You’ll see that, at their core, the faster licks are a combination of the usual Yngwie/Gilbert-style patterns with a string skip or tapped note here and there to add some spice.

I got a good internet friend to program the drums for me, and then attempted to do my own mixing. This is where I decided to aband…ehrm complete the project :wink:

Here’s the video, tabs and shortly I’ll share a backing track too:

EDIT: here’s a quick render of a backing track (I didn’t check it super carefully so let me know if it’s got any issues). I included a count-in so you can more easily line it up with a click track if needed.

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#2

As we all know, “legato is morally inferior to picking all the notes” (bonus points if you know the reference of that loose quote). That said…well done on this :slight_smile: Sounds nice and even. Smooth yet articulate. Not the “mushy” kind of legato that is actually morally inferior lol

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#3

Well, some people on the internet might still want to arrest me because I didn’t do “hammers only” :wink:

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#4

Ah yes. The “least immoral” of all legato has got to be the hammers only approach. Maybe tackle that next haha

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#5

Awesome. Just jammed to this, thanks Tommo. Good fun!

1 Like
#6

Awesome, that’s what I like to hear :slightly_smiling_face:
Actually i’d be very curious to hear what you came up with! But obviously no obligation;-)

#7

This is a cool track, Tommo. I also laughed and thought to myself “what happened to ‘strict alternate picking is the morally superior approach’”? (And fwiw, I’m still working through the Metronomic Rock Seminar. It’s a great one). I love, love, LOVE what some people call “video game music”. In fact, whenever I listen to the Joe Satriani song “The Elephants of Mars”, my youngest son (14) almost always comments about it being “Final Boss Battle Music”. I hope you keep posting your stuff here. It’s awesome to hear what the experts come up with. Back to the woodshed for me!

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#8

Back to the woodshed for all of us — but the important thing is that we don’t just spend all our life in the woodshed, and also make music with whatever tools we have at the moment :slight_smile:

In fact, I don’t consider myself an expert when it comes to legato playing - but I am definitely quite good at a few basic patterns and I try to squeeze all I can out of them. This piece was, among other things, a sort of excuse to get a bit deeper into the technique.

This has been my approach to “woodshedding” in recent years due to much reduced practice time. Every sort of technique that I want to “practice”, I try to write a piece of music around it!