Here is my Yngwie descending fours lick. It is a version of the Hot On Your Heels lick from Steeler (see video included below).
It is slightly modified to turn it into a classic circular style repeating lick. Here is the tab:
The speed is approx 195-198 bpm and it includes a LOT of string changes! (There are 23 string changes in 5 seconds)
Thanks to @Troy for assisting me in trouble shooting what I was doing wrong to help me get it. In short he encouraged me to focus on FORM rather than the individual notes I was missing.
This advice enabled me to put it all together. I massively experimented with different technique options until I discovered what worked. If you slow down the video you will see I am now hitting all the notes whereas previously I was consistently missing certain notes in the sequence. The challenge I faced was if you want to sound like
early Yngwie you have to hit all the notes cleanly at high speed. Because he does.
The MAJOR difference in my version to Yngwieâs is that I am alternate picking everything as economy still is beyond me at this point. I hope it still sounds Yngwie though - let me know what you think!
If I can point out one last improvement you can make, I can sometimes hear the open B string ringing. This may be because your index is not muting it when you are fretting the high E string?
In any case itâs a minor detail and this is great playing!
FWIW, I only heard this after Tommo mentioned it lol! Due to the key youâre in it actually sounds pretty awesome though!! Like this cool little syncopated pedal tone.
Great playing though, youâre âthereâ Code cracked!
I can hear it too, although itâs hard for me to tell whatâs causing it. It sounds and kind of looks like you are using swiping, but arenât quite muting the swipe during your left hand transition. Other wise pretty killer man!
One thing I should add (because I know how much you care about fine details @Interestedoz, and donât want you to go down a rabbit hole for 6 months):
these things are easily lost in a mix, the ear / brain is pretty forgiving and happy to pay more attention to the intended notes than the accidentals.
Just because I became very attentive to these things, I can hear the occasional unwanted open string in published records of shred masters like Yngwie, Vinnie Moore & co. I can still enjoy these records the same way though
In live performances, I hear these things even more.
We can do our best to reduce the accidentals, but I came to the conclusion that the guitar is just a fairly dirty instrument, and we have to accept it and enjoy it for what it is
Great job ! This is weird but Iâve been playing that exact same lick to develop my USX Dsweep YJM method. Youâre way better than me though so Iâve got some work to do still.
I normally play it in all the different modes though going up and down the E and B strings so I develop my fretboard knowledge and fingering at the same time. Maybe I should focus on one position like you to get the picking motions right before moving it about.
haha thanks tommo! You know me quite well now - and I wonât go down this rabbit hole. Not sure I could correct it as I have trouble hearing the accidentals . I remember when Anton Oparin was pointing out the swipey noises Paul Gilbert makes - I couldnât hear it! I know others can hear it though but my hearing struggles with it. Thanks for the awesome feedback as always.
thanks Fossegrim - I had to change my left hand technique to able to play the lick consistently and get the Yngwie "roll"going on the turnaround on the high E - that may be resulting in less muting. I think you are correct. But as I have a lot of trouble with my hearing picking up the swipey sounds - even with Paul Gilbert - I will just accept it I think lol thanks again for the encouragement!
thanks SlyVai - I took the approach that I needed to get one thing right. I wanted to be able to play and sound like early Yngwie and so I decided to really focus on getting one lick right. This lick funnily enough was NOT the lick I chose! I actually spent a year working on a phrase from an Alcatrazz solo. And got it quite close but was getting a bit stuck on certain points.
Troy and tommo have encouraged to play other licks other than just the one you are trying to crack. This ended up being incredibly helpful - even if the lick is just a different early Yngwie lick (like this Steeler one I chose) it gives you a different angle to learn from - and you pick up things that you can then take back to your main lick. I solved things on this Steeler lick that I wasnât solving on the Alcatrazz one that apply to both.
So if I could offer anything to you form my journey it would be to really focus on what you want to learn but to also take breaks from it to try other things to give yourself a break and as way to solve problems that may not be apparent to you while working on the main lick.
I heard your playing on the thread you posted and you are clearly very good - so really no reason why you canât get the Ygnwie fours happening.
Iâm really glad you are trying to get this lick too. I think it is a brilliant lick to help with alternate picking.
It contains so many elements:
rapid multiple string changes
an inside Gilbert on the way back to the top
the need for high level hand sync to get it to sound fluid
speed - to help one challenge their speed (though this lick doesnât need to be played at Yngwie speed to sound good)
I still have a way to go with what I want to achieve. I want to extrapolate what I have leant so far and be able to play it across a wider range of licks now. I really donât have any plans to try and get faster. There are plenty of players here a lot faster than me. I just want to improve on what I have learnt so far! Thanks for the feedback
^This. The guitar is just a noisy instrument. Even tremolo springs will generate unwanted noise and harmonics that your pickups will then sense unless you dampen them. That drove me nuts for years.
As a side note, I would be willing to bet also that the NS-2 Yngwie uses, also does quite a bit to hide a lot of the accidental finger and string noise he actually does generate. I take that back, you may not even hear it over the insane amount of noise his gear generates on its own. You can really hear how much reduction he uses on the initial attack of the first note he hits if of any phrase
Okay I just tried the lick and I got the same exact noise in it you did, and solved it by making sure the very tip of my index was always lightly pushed up against the b string until I absolutely had to finger the d note on the 15th fret. At that point made sure it was lightly draped over the E string, so that one doesnât ring. That took care of it for me at least.
I also had to play it using UPS and DSX or else it was a no go. (See Iâm learning the lingo).
Same here. I cannot play this lick up to speed but my best attempt was DSX, start on an upstroke and swipe everything that didnât workout lol! Pretty sure itâs all outside string changes so that is a solution. But yeah @Interestedoz , well done, that is a tough pattern the way youâre playing it.
I love that lick!
If Iâm not mistaken Jeff Watson also does exactly that at the end of his solo in Night Rangerâs âDonât Tell Me You Love Meâ.
Iâve been âworking onâ that one for like 35 years.
Pre-CtC, I mostly played it with a lot of pull-offs.
More recently I was able to get some satisfaction out of playing it on a single string (until it ended and I had to repeat).
Now, when I try to alternate pick it, I definitely feel like I have to start it on an upstroke. I canât tell from the videoâŚis that what youâre doing also?
Yep he sure does - just listened to it. Great player.
I start on a downstroke - and it is all down up down up. But the great thing about these fours licks as you say is you can start them on an upstroke, use pull offs, go upwards, downwards, etc and they sound great! At least to me. Iâm working on single string variations and all kinds of things with them at the moment.
A huge part of why I like the early Yngwie stuff so much is his playing had a huge amount of these licks in there. He then moved away from using them so much post Alcatrazz, but I thought they gave a real structure to his solos. All personal preference I suppose!
Thanks for the advice and encouragement @Interestedoz. My problem is that I get distracted too easily and when I do seem to concentrate and make progress I come back the next day and it seems like Iâm back to square one again.
Although I seem to be getting better at the down sweep Yngwie motion, itâs slowly getting faster but analysing my picking again last night I think I need to change the motions I am using because I canât seem to speed them up easily.
@SlyVai are you sure itâs because of your picking hand, and not because of the left hand and syncing? I ask because It just may be a rabbit hole your slinking down and your picking hand may just be fine.
Well funny you should say that @Fossegrim because I had the same thought this week when trying to play a fast Vai lick from Erotic Nightmares.
This 4s pattern in particular is out of my comfort zone as itâs not âsequentialâ, as in its got that jump when you start the second 4 which is unnatural to my fingers which are so used to playing scales sequentially.
Also, you may of seen in my other post that I do have left hand finger joint problems and although once I warm up its not restricting my finger movement it does hurt while playing especially the index finger and pinky. Itâs better than it was but itâs still a problem.
That aside the only way i know of improving sync is to play the lick slowly and speed up gradually over time.
Great playing! This is almost the same lick he does at the intro of âHiroshima mon amourâ but connects it with a lower position - heâs economypicking with some legato I presume?
Also donât forget to think of your overall form as something that may need tweaking. As @Fossegrim suggests this includes your left hand - as I had to make corrections with this too.
Also try to find a way to have fun with the challenge! I basically recorded all my serious takes and continued to play them back against Yngwieâs take to see if I was getting closer. Seems like a punishing thing to do I know - but it was actually fun to see if I was making progress. So see if there is a way to make the challenge fun so you donât get distracted.
Also on the sync - I had to do a LOT of work to get my sync better. This included a lot of really slow and fast work. Just had to really focus on it because it wasnât where it needed to be. But look after your hand first! If slow is all your hand allows at the time then do the slow stuff well!
One of the things I learnt out of this is there is so much more to this stuff than just speed. I was getting the speed and yet there where people playing it slower but BETTER than me. And it was frustrating! And then I would listen to Yngwie live playing it so much better than me AND faster than me! LOL
Thanks Johan. Yep he plays these licks all through the Alcatrazz stuff. And he does use economy and legato pulloffs to do it. I am alternate picking all of it. Economy picking at Yngwieâs level is beyond my skills at the moment. And to be honest I donât think I will pursue that as I am really into alternate picking and really like it. I like the sound of it and the challenge of trying to play things using it. It seems to suit my style better
I think he likely plays it down, up, pull off, down, down, up, down, pull off, up, down, up, down, up, hammer on, down, up, cycle through again.
Thereâs only likely one instance of economy or a sweep in there, but if Iâm completely honest I would have a hard time playing it the way yngwie does too, and I feel pretty comfortable with economy picking so itâs not that so much. For me, because Iâm also used to alternate picking sequences like that, I donât have to think of a picking pattern as well, itâs just down, up - my picking hand can be autonomous. Picking it like yngwie would on the other hand, because has this system worked out (which is autonomous to him Iâm sure) takes too much thinking about where your placing pick strokes pull offs, and sweeps.
When I try to apply the economy rules to the full version of the lick I cant work out how the rules would even work. Cesario Filho approaches the start of the lick exactly as you do ( D U p D D), but then after the extra note (blue circle) he swaps to the high E with an upstroke. But I am not sure that is how Yngwie does it - but he might. I just donât know. So hence I just use alternate! Not to mention I canât get my push through swipe to work anyway
Code cracked!
