Yngwie Style Circular Lick, Sixes and The Paul Gilbert Lick On my 88 Fender HM Strat

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#1

Hello!

I thought I would share a little clip I did with my old 1988 Fender HM Strat. I hadn’t played it in years and thought it would be fun to plug it in and shred a little. I started playing some licks I used to play years ago like this little Yngwie influenced circular lick inspired by his playing in the Alcatrazz days. I forgot all about this lick, but it is fun to play! I also brought back the “Paul Gilbert” lick that used to play all the time in the 80s. It was one of the first fast picking things I learned when I was taking lessons in the early 80s. My teacher showed it to me. He learned it from the old 70s Al Di Meola records. It was fun playing these licks again. :slightly_smiling_face:

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#2

I have one of those HM strats from 88 with the dimarzio super distortion In the bridge. LOVE that guitar. Will never sell it

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#3

Not even if I offer to pay you

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@Bill_hall killer playing as usual!

I’m curious, on your sextuplet phrases, is there a minimum bpm you target? I feel like there’s this threshold of around 120 - 125 bpm, where if you’re at or above that you’re really in the “shred zone”. You’re definitely there :metal: :metal: :metal: I can get there on my good days but I think my pre-Troy max was more in the 110 - 115 range and that’s just not as cool sounding lol! I find myself sort of defaulting to that range and have to spot check myself with a metronome to find out I’m not quite as fast as I’d like to be.

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#4

Hello, @joebegly. Thanks! I would say that for me 120 on the metronome is really easy….that would be my cruising speed.The 120 to 133 range feels pretty effortless. I play to a lot of backing tracks and a lot of them are in that range tempo wise. I do play sextuplets in the 134 to 140s range a lot also. Those tempos feel good but I liked to be warmed up before I really got into that range. I am sure I could grind them out even faster but I never really feel the urge to do that. Once I am warmed up it feels really natural. For me it is all about how the left hand is feeling so I usually warm up the left hand and then the picking feels pretty easy. I like to feel the sextuplet motions in my hands. For me the timing is what is most important. One I feel that rhythm and pulse everything flows nicely for me.

I think this was 124 on the metronome.

Thanks for watching! :slightly_smiling_face:

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#5

Awesome explanation. Thanks Bill!

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#6

You are making it look so easy! Very relaxed looking elbow mechanic. Were you playing fast with the elbow since the 80s? Or was it something you developed later?

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#7

Hello, @jptk. Thank you! :slightly_smiling_face: The elbow mechanic was something I just started around 1985 trying to play like Yngwie. It felt really natural and comfortable and allowed me to play the lines like I wanted to…so I never really changed it at all over the years. I just added other mechanics along with it to play things as I developed as a player and now I just sort of weave in and out of them all.

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#8

That’s really cool, you are hitting some serious shred speed with it! :fire:

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