Introduction'
Wow, I bet you love those titles I come up with for my articles, huh? "Stretch It !", "Stretch Some More !", and no "Skip It"... (can you guess the title of the upcoming article about tapping?!?)
But hey, I just wanna make clear what the article is about, and at the same time I am too weird to simply write "String-Skipping" or something. So bear with me, ok?
Anyway, we have covered most of the "rock guitar" and "shred" techniques (picking, legato, sweeping, the whammy bar, harmonics) in some of the other articles, and this is the newest one in this little "interactive online book" of mine =) (Some more are on the way)
There is already an article about this technique available at iBreathe, written by Geoff Thorpe, and Geoff sure did a good job writing an introduction to the technique.
But since I always have to have the last word, and since I have this "thread" going through my series of articles (starting with elemental techniques such as picking and legato, going to the more difficult techniques such as sweeping etc.) I decided to write another "introduction to string-skipping).
I also wanna kind build upon the articles I have already written, since I am gonna show you some string-skipping licks in the style of guys like Greg Howe, Paul Gilbert and... well, myself, and you sure need to be familiar (and more than that!) with the basic techniques I wrote about, before you approach string-skipping.
By the way, why didn't you skip this introduction? (Mu har har har) You knew it would be another one of those boring, way-too-long Vandenberg-introductions... =)
OK, what IS string-skipping?
Well, it's just what the name implies: skipping strings while playing. You skip certain strings while playing fast licks and melodic stuff. And here is the FIRST THING TO KEEP IN MIND: Just like arpeggios and tapping, string-skipping can be a GREAT melodic tool. So don't consider it "just another great technique to create mind-boggling sounds"... you can use it to create really cool melodies and simulate the sound / note-choice of other instruments, like the voice and the saxophone.
But we'll get to some melodic applications later on...
Why skipping ?
Well, often, when listening to some other players (especially beginners) I start to think whether there's an unwritten law for guitarists to never play an interval bigger than the major third. (I hope it's not a law, otherwise guys like Thorsten and me are outlaws on the run... )
Seriously: you have an instrument which you can play HUGE intervals on without moving the hand too much, cuz you have 6 adjacent strings, tuned in fourths (and a major third).
Put your index finger on the E at the 12th fret, low E-string. Now, play that note, and then play the higher E at the 12th fret, HIGH E-String. That's an interval of 2 octaves, and you haven't even moved your hand along the neck.
Now, play the low E-again, and then reach out for the higher frets on the high E-string... If you can play an A, you have played an interval of two octaves and a perfect 4th!
I know that just a bunch of notes like that doesn't sound really cool or ground-breaking, but maybe it can help you to understand what kind of stuff you can do on a guitar, regarding intervals.
So why limit yourself to only playing on adjacent strings?
First exercises
Let's try to take a skip to string-skipping.
The first example is a short run in the key of C major, starting on E (so are we in E Phrygian now? You decide! =) ). As you can see, we're playing on two adjacent strings.
Now, let's start on the C (5th fret G-string), play the next two diatonic notes (D and E), then SKIP the B-string and play on in the 5th position of the high E-string.
Sounds quite a bit different, compared to our previous "good ol' shoes"-adjacent-string-run, doesn't it?
OK, seriously, I am not saying that the "regular, adjacent-string playing" is old-fashioned or not cool. You can play just as many bad licks with string skipping as you can with the "regular way of playing". I am just saying that everyone should look into this and maybe add that "tool" to your repertoire. You can use it both to create mind-boggling licks and to get some cool melodies... to break out of your box, too...
You might wanna mute the B-string with either the left or the right hand, especially if you use a lot of gain. String-skipping sounds best of you have as least noise as possible (D'uh!), and the string "in the middle", between the ones you're playing on can create some really annoying noises. So try to mute it, either with a part of your picking hand or i.e. with the finger-tip of one of the l.h.-fingers.
Now,let's create a repeating pattern with the six notes of our second lick. Starting on C, skipping the B-string, we're ascending and descending again.
If you got bored with the way that that sounded with your regular adjacent-string-scale pattern, maybe you'll like the way it sounds with string-skipping. After all, it's a nice little leap from the E to the A... a fourth.
One other thing: of course, all the licks I am gonna show you in this article can be played in many ways. You can play our third exercise by PICKING all the notes (which is quite a challenge at high-speed, even if your picking technique is pretty good already... the skip might be confusing at first), or by using a combination of picking and legato, you can even hammer on / pull off ALL the notes. Just take your time and try different ways of playing this stuff...
Now, let's move up the neck, in the key of C Major. This requires that you know the scale patterns (hmmmm... I wrote an article about three note per string-patterns, which should be helpful). Here is the lick:
I like the sound of that, has a slight classical vibe IMO.
And, you guessed it, a descending version. Remember to try both picking and legato-style.
OK, let's ascend again, but this time we're gonna use the sequence we looked at a few licks ago... that ascending / descending repeating pattern… If we move along the neck again, using the same patterns once more, but applying that sequence to it, this is what we get:
Let's forget about a descending version of that for now (you can figure out that one by yourself), and let's take a different approach now:
Previously, we stayed in the same position on the adjacent strings. What I mean is: we started in 5th position on the G-string, and when we skipped to the E-string, we started at the 5th fret there, too. And it pretty much stayed that way when we moved the sequences up the neck.
This time, we're gonna skip the string while simultaneously changing the position ("Wow, feeling adventurous today, Vandenberg?!?")
Here is how that looks... try to tackle it after feeling comfortable with the previous exercises:
There are all kinds of different variations you can come up with, so experiment a bit.
Now let's take one of the previous examples and move it to different strings… i.e. the low E- and D-string.
This might be even harder, since you're on the lower strings and have to skip some strings. But it's a neat sound, and it's always good to be able to use a technique in all the possible positions and on all possible string-combinations. Here's the exercise:
Taking it up a notch
Let's take it up another notch now... you can of course incorporate even more strings, while skipping others. Let's stay in the key of A Min / C Maj, and let's try adding a third string:
OK, it's starting to get tough here, doesn't it? Nope? Ok, we'll get to that later on...
Here is another string-combination: A-G-highE-strings:
Now, here comes a lick I really like a lot. We're kinda ascending in a pattern of A Min, and we're starting on the low E-string, playing three notes. Then we're skipping to the D-string, again playing three notes.
Jump back to the A-string, skip the D to get to the G-string. Are you seeing the system here?
I was never good at mathemathics, so let's put it into some kind of formula… =)
If low E-string=6 and high E-string = 1, then= 6-4-5-3-4-2-3-1 = Cool lick.
Mandelbrot, take cover!
Do you recognize this system? I showed it to you before, in one of my articles about the stretch-pentatonic. Here is the same sequence applied to the E Minor-stretch pentatonic, in E Minor:
OK, let's see what else we can do. How about we play 3 notes on a certain string, then we play 3 on the next adjacent one, then go back to the first one, then skip one, go back to the first string, skip 2 etc? No? Oh pleeeeeaaaaassssseeeee!!
Wasn't that bad, was it?
By the way, don't forget that the PTB file of this article can be downloaded at the end of the article, so you can use Powertab to practise all those licks…
Next, we're gonna apply that same sequence to the stretch pentatonic-pattern we used before... the first string is the low-e-string, so it's the one we're always coming back to in between alternating between the other five… check it out:
And back again, still returning to the low-e-string in between:
Of course, you can turn the whole thing around when descending, using the high E-string as your "pedal-string", instead of the low one...
Triads and 7th chords
Now to something I talked about before. And Geoff wrote about it in his article too: the possibility to arpeggiate a triad using string-skipping. Paul Gilbert is quite popular for that among guitarists, and uses it frequently.
Here's the basic idea one more:
In the first measure, you see an arpeggiated E minor arpeggio. The notes of an Emin triad are:
E-G-B. And those are the only ones we used in this exercise. It's up to you how you distribute the notes, so you can come up with different patterns for each triad. Play around with the different inversions.
In the second measure, you see the same sequence applied to an Emaj triad ( E-G#-B )
Now, it's a bit easier to play these kinda patterns using a combination of picking and legato... here are the same arps with hammer-on's / pull offs included:
OK, I once came up with a little etude using those shapes (on different string-combinations). The etude is based on an etude by Paul Gilbert (from the "Terrifying Guitar Trip"-video), I took the first part of his and then changed the rest a bit.
Pay attention to the time-signature, we're thinking 6/4 here. The chord-progression would be:
Em-A-D-G-C-D
OK, now let's talk about those other chords (MuHar Har Har)… 7th chords.
Here is one possible way to arpeggiate a minor7 (bar 1), dom7 / 7 (bar 2) and a maj7 (bar 3).
Some wide stretches in here, so be careful and warm up. Now, let's again apply a sequence to those. Here is the min7-arp, ascending and descending (by the way, it's a bit unusual to start a pattern like that with the 7th, but you like tension, don't ya?!?)
Now, since we have the shapes for min7, maj7 and 7, why don't we make up a little etude based on those. The chord sequence shall be Emin7-G7-Emin7-D7
Here ya go:
And again, experiment with different inversions and patterns, on different string combinations. I am just trying to show you a few basic things here, so you can build on that and come up with your own sequences and licks.
Also, why don't you do the following:
- Make up a pattern for a m7b5 chord
- Choose an easy song from a real book
- Play through the changes using those patterns. Hereby I give you "permission to fuse"!
Now, maybe, when you saw those 7th chords-patterns, you said "Man, those stretches are tough. How the heck am I supposed to play those?" Well, as I mentioned before, try each exercise and lick using different techniques, like picking, legato etc.
And with those 7th chords, we can (I mentioned before) use some Greg Howe-Approach and tap the highest note on each string.
If we move the min7-pattern down to the 7th position (which would give us a Bmin7-arp), we'd have some really tough stretches. So, let's tap the highest note on each string, like this:
Now it's up to you to come up with some cool licks using all those ideas, approaches and patterns.
Melodic approach
Another lick
OK, but before I let you go, here is another string-skipping lick I use a lot.
In the key of C major:
You can apply that sequence to all the 3 note-per-string-patterns I showed you in my article about those patterns. It works quite well.
Melodic Approach
As mentioned before, string skipping also can be used to create some very cool melodies. For guitar4u, I once wrote about an article dealing with open-voiced triads. And this is what we have in our next example:
Think: an Esus2-Arp, skipping the g-string (thereby skipping the octave of our root, E), and then going from the 2 (F#) to the minor-third, giving us the sound of an open voiced E min-triad.
In bar 2, you see the same idea used with a Dsus2 / Dmaj triad. It's a nice sound for melodies, since you're having that "leap o'faith" ( =) ) in there. I always am reminded of Eric Johnson when I hear or play that kinda lick. Neil Zaza uses this approach sometimes, too...
Here is a whole triad-sequence, played with "open voiced triads", going from sus2 to maj/min triads. Implied chords are indicated in the TAB. This is a bit like what Eric Johnson plays in the intro of "Cliffs Of Dover". Look-ie here:
And finally, one more simple example. You can play most melodies in more than one way, and here is a string-skipping sound of the very first melody in Steve Vai's "For The Love Of God".
Try to improvise using string skips like that, incorporating big interval leaps into your lines to break away from any "no interval bigger than a major third" way of thinking...
Start out slowly, and don't use string-skipping only to create shred-licks!
(By the way, or do those first few notes sound a lot like the first few notes of the "Kung Fu"-titlesong, from that old TV-show... you know where the guy sings "Who-ho-ho-hooooo")
That's IT !
OK, I hope this was fun for you, and I hope this is a worty addition to Geoff's article about string-skipping. And I hope you'll have fun and be successful exploring this technique… it's a great tool !
The Powertab-file for this article!
See ya in the forums !