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Another way of doing alternate picking, which
I think is really great, take your E. Don’t
use your open E as your anchor anymore, same
kind of a pattern. You’re downing it and you’re
tripling it.

My biggest effect with this is I learned a way
of doing it, watching guys like Marty Freeman
and Paul Gilbert. They have such great right
finger technique, it’s just unbelievable the
way they do things. They took a basic, you know…
and they made it better. They made it so much better,
so much more like, how did you get that sound?
It took me years to kind of get my way of doing this.

So let’s try this with the E. I’m not using my wrist
at all for this. Usually you use your wrist for up
and down picking. With this, I’m using my pointer
finger and my thumb on my picking hand and I’m
circling with my two fingers. It’s going really
slow, get really close up on this one.

Show my fingering.

It’s one and two and triplet; one and two and triplet.
And then you can really bring it. And watch the chirp
of your guitar. If you don’t hit it really tight,
you’ll get a chirp sound. Your amp will get a
feedback sound because your pick is moving like in a
circular motion.

Explain that to you. What I’m saying, going like this,
I’m saying almost like wax on, wax off, in a way, but
not really. You’re pretty much taking your hand and
you’re just going like this. And you’re not moving
your wrist. Basically you’re just…

Hear that chirp? Again, like I said, we use our thumb
and our pointer finger, really slow. Build it up.

So we show the different bases, where we can down-stroke
it and triplet pick it. I think it really works in a lot
of different sounds. I think in a lot of verses of songs
you should down-pick a lot because it gives it, you know,
a real dry like…

Then you can put your triplet pick in there.

Stay tuned for the release of this DVD product on August 17th!

– CLAUDE

One of my all-time favorite bands, rhythmically,
Ritchie Blackmore, another Tony Iommi. But he did
things a little bit different. He didn’t play more
of a blues pattern; he wasn’t doing the… He didn’t
do the bouncy kind of thing; he had a very different
way of doing chords.

Slow it up a little bit and take two strings, your G
and your D. This is a Ritchie Blackmore kind of a vibe.
He had a whole different way of doing it. He didn’t use
a pick as much; he used his two fingers and he picked
it almost like an old fashioned chicken-pickin’, like
country players, you know, Roy Gallagher and even
Chet Atkins was really into this kind of picking.

So Blackmore took a lot of this old vibe and went to
this kind of thing. It would slur together. Like I said,
with ascending half a step, ascending half step. Okay.
So it’s whole, half. Start on A. Slow. There’s a great
riff for you guys to work on. Let’s do this together.

Work on the 5th fret. This is where we ended the phrase
I showed you with the half step. Using the box, 5-7 box;
1-3 again. So we’re going to go 2nd fret. The only strings
we’re going to use are your D and your G. Okay.

We’re going to pull-off. We went over this many times when
we were pulling off, but I always like the pull-off. It gives
it a real cool attitude. We are going to walk descending,
back to the A. So we go… You can pick it if you like.

Let’s do something very basic together. Slower again.
That D string is all by itself, open, as you hammer-down.
You’re bouncing off the D with these two finger notes.
Another way of doing this chord is, if you like, a lot
of players will do this, they’ll use their two fingers,
the first and the second finger, and hit the notes
individually. It gives it a little more clarity and you
can up and down it.

So let’s do this together. One, two, three, four.

We slid down. So let’s do this up to speed now,
with a little more gain to it. We use our pick.

Now, a nice and slow speed. And every time you do
that you’re anchoring your open E again. Every time,
it’s your little breath in between. It’s almost like
a meter pattern. Boom-boom-boom-ba-E. Boom-boom-boom-ba-E.
It’s this — you’re always — your right hand is never
letting go. You’re just pretty much…but it’s very
tight on the speed pattern.

Again, that’s another technique you should always try
to work with. It’s half-step walks. I think they’re
really great in rock and metal and a lot of blues
patterns like to walk down the neck.

As I do my A-sharp, I slowly again slide as I’m
picking to the fifth fret, low E string. My pinkie
is on the A string, 7th fret, which makes an A.

So now I’m going… That’s the two-pattern of it all.
And to finish the whole three pattern walk, as they
call a three-pattern walk, because you’re one-two;
one-two; one-two. As I’m doing that, I’m going three
separate runs in the middle of my down picking.

The next time we do it, after we anchor our E again,
always remember, anchor your E string. On the low
E string, on the 8th fret, our pinkie again, our
fourth finger, is on the 10th fret, A string, which
gives it that really aggressive part now.

Now, when you put it together up to speed, just
remember be tight and slowly make sure you hear
every note. Your half-step runs, you need to make
sure you’re starting on the sharp note and you end
it on a full power chord. And when I say full power
chord, I use two fingers. It’s not like a full barre
chord where you use all four fingers. It’s just two
basic; your one and your four or your one and your
three, whatever you prefer.

So, up to speed… And you can really dominate this
if you just really get the feel of it.

A whole different attitude. It drives; it says a lot.
It says wow, this guy really took his time to write
his rhythms out.

Make sure you put away your lead guitar for a while.
Don’t even think about the first three strings on
the guitar. Think about D, A and E. Use them.
They’re the cornerstone of how you play.
They’re the basic — you don’t build a house
without a foundation. Rhythms; foundation.

Okay. Let’s get studying the blues patterns.
Bands like Led Zepplin, Jimmy Page, Bad Company,
great stuff for blues. Let’s start with like a basic run.

I think it’s really cool. I change my sound a
lot for this. I’m using both pickups in the
middle position. I roll back on my volume on
my guitar and I put a little delay to give it
much of an ambiance kind of effect to how I’m playing this.

It’s an A and I’m pulling-off 1-3-4. As I’m
pulling off I’m going… I’m always going back
to the A. One, two, three, four and I’m hammering-down
on the C, open. Nice and slow. One, two, three, four. Up, down.

I just walked it. So as I did this, all I did was
I did the same exact pattern, but then I went up
to the E and I anchored my E as my A. So still
second fret, one string up. Let’s try it together,
nice and slow. Watch my hands.

Here’s a quick sample:

Post your comment please

All I can say is rhythm is pretty much a part
of your life, it should be. If you’re going to
play guitar, do me a favor, a lot of kids today,
no disrespect, all they care about is sweeping.

You know what?

irst of all, pick up a broom; sweep your house.
Let’s talk about rhythm. Rhythm is the base of
every single part you play. You build a house;
you build a platform for the house.

You play a rhythm. Use your right hand.
It’s your best friend.

If you can make your rhythm drive, again, like
I said, nothing — no disrespect to the ’80s guys,
a lot of those records, there was no rhythm. If
it wasn’t for the bass and drums, I wouldn’t know
where rhythm started or it began.

Eddie Van Halen was one of the best guys to play
open chords and play rhythms. Randy Rhoads came
out of nowhere and just showed rhythms; rhythms;
rhythms; rhythms. Gary Moore, rhythms. I keep
saying it over and over again. You know, listen
to Neil Schon.

Listen to how he strikes his rhythms. A lot of
new guys on the scene, Doug Aldrich played in Dio;
he’s in White Snake now. That guy has an amazing
right hand. Before he solos or anything, he makes
sure his rhythms just say everything.

He used to be able in three chords and your right
hand, be able to write 50-million songs. Just take
your time and the bottom line is, learn your basic
chords: your power chords, your barre chords, and
learn a lot of open chords, because you want to be
able to get a gig where, wow, this guy can play
anything. He can play country, he can play rock,
he can play blues.

Just take your time. Practice, practice, practice.