Chords for Using Your Chops For Good Instead of Evil | Nick Jennison | Guitar Lessons

Hi, my name's Nick Jennison.
Got a lesson for all you shredders out there today about using your chops for good instead
of for evil.
More on that in just [C] a second.
But first of all, something on the guitar we're using today.
This is a lovely Shergold Masquerader.
Gonna use it predominantly on the bridge humbucker, but we might find a way across this lovely
Neck P90 at some point.
Playing through a Peavey Classic 30 with some [G#] fuzzes, modulations, and [G] delays, which I'll
tell you about [G#] in just a second.
Now let me paint you a picture about a scenario that I find myself in fairly regularly.
See, I grew up on a diet of all the old shrapnel shredders, so I'm a bit of a wiggly woodler.
Spent most of my teenage years playing stuff like this.
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _ And that stuff is great fun and in the right setting, absolutely wonderful.
But to be honest, the kind of bands that I find myself playing with these days and the
kind of singers I find myself working with, not really interested in all that kind of stuff.
They're kind of more into the textural aspects of guitar playing.
And I was thinking to myself, wouldn't it be cool if I could take all that hard work
that I've done and I could repurpose it in a [F#] way that these artists that I'm working
with would appreciate and would kind of like benefit their music.
So what I want to sell to you today is the idea that you can take all these crazy chops
that you've developed, such as these tapping licks that we're about to talk about, and
you can use them to create almost synth-like arpeggiator type lines, which [C] I'm going to
show you in a second.
But first of all, let's set ourself a chord progression that we can work around.
Let's imagine you're working with a singer and they presented you with a [D] song that uses
the following chords.
Let's do D major, _ _ _ _ [A]
A major, _ _ E [Em] minor, _ _ and B [Bm] minor.
_ So it might go [D] like this.
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _
_ _ _ Now, I'm sure you can already imagine hundreds of songs that sound just like that.
And I'm sure you can imagine how you'd fit your guitar playing in there in [E] an interesting way.
But I want to sell you on the idea that you might try doing this lick.
Bear with me. _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ So you might be thinking, and you're probably right to think this, that [N] that's wholly unsuitable
for most musical applications.
But I want you to imagine for a second that you have a really nice analog synth with an
arpeggiator function, where you can hold down a chord and it'll play a lovely arpeggio for you.
Now, I want you to imagine that you can use your tapping chops to create a similar kind of effect.
Now, first of all, let's go about learning the lick, and then I'm going to show you how
you can turn it into an arpeggiator type sound using some scores on the floor.
The lick is rather simple.
I mean, it takes a lot of kind of facility to execute, but if you're watching this lesson,
I'm guessing you're probably all right with it.
So we're going to start with the root notes of [D] each chord.
We're going to begin with a D.
And on this [G] D, we'll build _ [E] _
an add-9 arpeggio, which is
going to give us on [D] five on the A string, five, [E] _ [F#] seven, nine.
[A] _
_ We'll tap 12.
And then we'll take exactly the same shape, and we will move it up to the next octave,
starting here, [E] fret seven on the G string, which will give us seven, [F#m] nine, 11, _ 14.
Now, the pattern we'll play for this one is going to _ [E] be_so_s _ _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ [F#m] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F#m] _ _ [E] _ _ [D] _ _ _ [F#] _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [G] it's basically up and down the A string, up the A string to the G string, up and down, and then back to our A string for one more little repetition. We'll maintain this pattern throughout the various arpeggios we're about to play. Now, [Em] that's the D arpeggio. The A is going to be exactly the same, but one string further up, which will give us this. [A] _ [B] _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ [A] _ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ [A] _
[B] _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ And as for the two minor arpeggios, [D#] we'll do those starting two frets higher. Here's our E, and here's our B. And for this one, we'll [E] play a shape that looks a bit like this. We're going to do seven on the A string, _ _ _ _ nine, again, on the A [F#] string, _ _ 10 on the A [G] string. This is a one, three, [B] four fingering. And then we'll tap out on [E] 14, which is two frets higher than where we had it previously. _ _ [G] _ _ _ [B] And once again, [E] we'll move that through the octave. So we're going to go up here to nine on the G string, [F#] _ _ _ [Em] _ and we'll play exactly the same pattern, which is going to give us this. _ [G] _ _ [F#] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ [G] _ _
And then once again, for the B [E] minor, exactly the same thing, one string [B] further up, which will give us this. [C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Cool. Now, again, you might be thinking, well, what's this got to do with kind of making my guitar sound like an arpeggiator? Yes, it's arpeggios, but it still sounds like a shreddy guitar. Well, _ if you get a bit creative with the noises you're employing on the floor, you can start [F#] to change the tone of your guitar so it sounds a bit less guitar-y, a bit more synth-y. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put a fuzz on for one thing as a noise gate. To keep that down. _ Again, kind of a metal thing, but if you're using fuzz as noise gates, they're actually pretty cool. We're going to throw on a ring modulator and a very short [B] _ slapback delay, which will give us [G] this kind of [A] sound. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
It doesn't sound too much like a guitar. Oh, yes, one other thing I've done is I'm playing on the bridge pickup. I've rolled my tone control all the way back. With it up, it'll be this. _ _ _ _ _ Still kind of sounds like a fuzzy guitar. When you roll it back, you get this _ _ _ _ kind of muted, [C#] buzzy kind of sound. As you play through your [D] arpeggios, you'll get this kind of noise. [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
[B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
Up to speed, that's going to give us this. [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ Which I'm sure you'll agree doesn't sound an awful lot like a guitar, but it sounds like a [N] really cool synth-y texture. It's a way that you can apply all these kind of crazy chops that you've learned in a sort of a non-guitar-y kind of way that might be appreciated by songwriters and arrangers that you're working with. It's certainly going to stop you from having to hire a keyboard player to press one button. Anyway, I'm going to leave that there. I want you to experiment with this with all of the chopsy ideas you've got to make it genuinely arpeggiator-like. It helps to play a consistent pattern, such as we've done there. But again, you can experiment with all sorts of things. See what you can come out with. I have more creative type guitar lessons coming to you very shortly, but for the time being, I'm going to sign out. My name's Nick Jennison. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you next time. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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