For the final event, we have the melody line and some other fun stuff.
First of all, I have noted the melody line with the same kind of alternate picked approach as the riffs. However, this can be played using legato, hybrid picking or whatever your preference is! You will see in the video, how I play it switching between some various approaches. So whatever floats your boat is fine, this line can be more easily suited to your preferred technique, unlike the previous riffs.
There is also a harmonized part a third up the scale in most of these melodies which we won’t go into, or the tabs would be immensely cluttered! But should you really want it anyways, shoot me a PM and I’ll hook you up.
When we approach the “slap harmonics” in bars 13-14, you would be very wise to also check out my All About Harmonics tutorial, to really understand the concept of harmonics and how to use them! In that tutorial, you will get both theory and practice in one big honking behemoth of a tutorial!!For example you will see that in the end of bar 14, the harmonic is situated NOT on a bar, but rather on bar 14,7 (actually the first notes aren’t on bar 16 either, but rather on bar 15,9, but I let that slip since we are so far up the neck, that the distances are so small). So PLEASE read up on that tutorial and you will understand fully what I’m referring too. However, when I did that tutorial, I had yet not found a way to note these “in-between-frets” harmonics, so listen to what I say and read rather than looking at the tabs. I will go through these and replace what needs to be replaced with new tabs, using the revised method I used for this tab.
Another thing to note is the “slapping” noises you will hear in the video. When using a guitar with a pretty slick setup (such as the PRS in the video) the slap noises can be heard quite easily. Most players that use this technique, such as I.A Eklundh or Bumblefoot, use a slightly higher string setting to eliminate these noises. ALSO, when recording with a real amp, these sounds are minimized. I use a line in signal here, which is not optimal for this technique. When you check the Harmonics tutorial above you will hear that even though you hear plenty of string noise (seeing how it is just the camera sound), the actual notes are very clean indeed, since I’m using a live amp. Experiment with your own setup to see what provides you with the best results.
When you listen to the actual recording of this track in my Instructor Profile, you will hear no such noises, since that was recorded with real amps in a studio, so that is a far better representation of what this technique can be used for, check it out!
As far as the Sweeps before the solo, I have tabbed them out, but seeing how very primitive and basic they are, I didn’t bother demonstrating them. It is just regular A-shape 5 string sweeps, Bm, A and G back and forth. Worth noting is that they are harmonized using the parallel chord a third down, which are G, F#m and Em. IF you feel unsure about, or new to the concept of even sweeping such as this, go ahead and check out my tutorial Tribute Excerpt – Sweep Picking Etude. That will give you a whole days worth of sweeping to practice!
So, after all this events, you’ve finally reached the goal of the triathlon! Congrats, and see you in my next tutorial!