Chords for The 6 LEVELS of Paranoid (Main Riff)

What's up everyone Mike here from the art of guitar here with another levels video a lot of you guys have been requesting some
songs and riffs and I thought I would do
Easier one first and then work my way up the next couple weeks
We're gonna release two more that I'm planning on.
So the first one's going to be paranoid by Black Sabbath and
some people think this is a super easy riff, but I've seen it played a bunch of different ways and
If you work your way up the levels eventually you'd be kind of surprised when you get to the end some of you guys
If you haven't done this already, it's a lot of fun
So the first way I learned it, like I said before I had the tribute book the live
Ozzy book with Randy Rhoads and Randy would play paranoid actually here on the fifth string seventh fret
So it had a little bit of a different sound but here's here's where he played it
_ _ [B] _
_ [E] _ But the way I see people interpret that sometimes when they're not really sure
Exactly how it goes is they play the power chord and then they pick the next couple notes and it sounds kind of weird
It sounds like this
So _ [B] _ _ [E] _
_ _ [B] _ _ [E] _ _ _
the first way I alternate pick the second way I did all down strokes either way.
It doesn't quite sound right does it?
Okay, so that's the first level you could play it there
It's sometimes more comfortable for people because it's at the seventh fret instead of where we're gonna be which is a lot higher on the neck
Okay, so the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna do the same thing
This will be level two except we're gonna move up to the twelfth fret of the sixth string
So on the other video I talked about on Iron Man the levels of Iron Man that things do sound different
Depending on where you play them, even if they're the same note
So here's an example if I'm here at the old level one and you play the power chord _
_ Sounds like that.
However, if you play it here on the sixth string twelfth fret
_ See how it has a deeper sound to it
There's just a different different feel which is very Black Sabbath like when it gets deeper sounding
Okay, so we're gonna do the same thing.
We did here except move it over here and we're gonna call it level two _ _
[B] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
Okay, then when you get a little bit better you're gonna notice that they're not picking
Tony Iommi is not picking the last four notes like that.
He's playing one and then he's hammering on
So you get this effect for hammer-ons? _ _ _ _
[E] _ Now if you add that to the first power chord you get this _
_ [B] _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ It's a little smoother if you know about hammer-ons versus picking you get a smoother sound so you can be
[E] _ _ _ [F#] Versus
_ [E] Hmm which could be a little too much attack and too much work
So that's level three just add the hammer-ons
Level four is we're going to take this first power chord and we're gonna make it a little bit more
Dynamic.
So instead of just playing the power chord like this _
[C] We're actually going to [G#] hammer on
[A] So what you do is you take your index finger and bar it across the sixth string and the fifth string at the twelfth fret
And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna take our ring finger and hammer down hammer on on the fifth string 14th fret
So you're gonna go from A to B.
We're gonna go
[E] _ So it creates that power chord.
Eventually, we're gonna do that three times.
But remember these are not slow hammer-ons.
Some people go like this _ _
_ [E] It's not really like that it's supposed to be faster _ _
So if you add that to the mix you get level four
_ _ [B] _
_ _ [E] _ _ That's not bad.
You can get away with that one for many years.
I know I did until I learned the details
Okay, what's level five?
It's getting it always gets curious around the higher levels
You're like what else can you add to this to make it any more authentic?
Well level five is going to be the same [B] exact stuff except at the very end.
We're not gonna do this
_ _ _ Instead we're gonna go like this
_ _ _ _ and that's very strange because you're hammering on to the fifth string 14th fret instead of the
14th fret of the fourth string which is more
[C] Makes more sense in this [B] context _ _
_ So they're doing that
_ _ _ [B] _
Come back and hammer out of nowhere that [C] B note
Okay, so you end up with a more authentic sound if you really listen to the recording you can [E] hear that _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ so now the big question is what the heck could level six be and
It's kind of fun to to quiz people and say okay
What do you think is left out of this and some people make jokes when it comes to Tony?
I owe me about cutting your fingertips off and stuff
But I try not to joke about that because it's cuts a little too close to home
Strikes a nerve if you will
But the sixth level detail is actually something that makes all of this seem really easy and it's something I didn't notice till fairly recently
Now we're gonna do is we're gonna do exactly we did last time except we're never gonna move our index finger
So we're actually gonna bar across the sixth string fifth string and the fourth string, which seems a little bit crazy
But if you watch Tony's left hand when he's playing
Actually the other way right hand because he plays the other way what you're gonna notice is
His first finger does not move like watch mine when I do the level five _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ So his fretting hand actually doesn't move so you end up with this
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Okay, so a lot of people ask
How do you play all those notes while barring and not have a bunch of notes just ringing out because it's easy to have this happen _ _
_ [B] _ _ [E] _ It just gets too noisy
So you have to be really good at rolling your index finger
Even if it's just the slightest bit if you do that
You can avoid a lot of the notes ringing out together and you get this
_ _ _ [B] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ Very slight but it does help another thing I tend to do is touch the sixth string just slightly as I'm picking the fifth string
So after the first power chords
_ _ _ _ [A] Might [N] not have noticed what I just did but I did a simultaneous palm mute while I picked
So you see when you get down to the details things get
Microscopically difficult which are really hard to practice and really hard to master, but that's what makes them great
Some people say why would you want to go that detailed?
Why do you want to be exactly like Tony when you play and I always say because that's where the magic is in my opinion
Yes, you could play it any way you want Randy Rhoads did but sometimes it's fun to go deep and really find out
What what the recipe is for the magic?
Alright guys.
Hope you enjoyed that video
We have a couple more of these level videos coming out very soon
So keep an eye out for that, but see if you can master paranoid.
Alright, [E] see ya _ _ _ _ _