Triplet/Sextuplet Technique

[TSJMajesty]

In one of my other threads about finger speed, I took away 2 main things:

1. Leon @2112 posting Kiko's video of him just lightly touching the strings, and
2. Drew @DrewJD82 Asking me about doing a particular hammer-on lick, and stopping in the middle of it.

Both of which forced me to take a good look at making absolutely certain I have no tension while playing.

My sextuplet riffs top out at about 110-115 bpm, and at that tempo, I definitely have tension in my picking hand. So I decided to gather up every triplet/sextuplet riff/song/solo that I use for practice, slow them way down to a very comfortable tempo, starting at playing them all as triplets @ 80 bpm, making sure there's absolutely no tension, and working my way back up in 5 bpm increments. But only after really working at that tempo, until it is completely comfortable, and tension-free.

I'm hoping this will give me a few results:

1. Get me through that transition tempo where I struggle to keep everything even. I can play slower and faster than this particular range, but my picking is erratic in this zone
2. Lose the tension when I get back to sextuplets at my current top speed, and
3. Hopefully once that tension is gone, be able to get faster. Especially since most every one of these riffs I'm using are faster than my current abilities.

Also, that 110-115 top speed is only for certain riffs. Others are slower, but because they're different, my top speed is much lower.

Examples:

• I can play the lick in Overture 1928 up to tempo (112), but not Mr. Crowley (107), because the former is a scalar picked lick; the latter uses pinky pull-offs. And my pinky is SLOW! (The original reason for my question in that other thread.)

So here's a list of all these songs/riffs/solos, in case anyone is interested in playing along. Or whatever.

 

[TSJMajesty]

From slowest to fastest...

First up, the main theme in both octaves of John Petrucci's Glasgow Kiss.

This one is a ton of single note-per-string playing. Quite the challenge! If counted as triplets, it's 138. I can do ~123, but it's like I'm hanging on for dear life on a galloping horse!

Glasgow Kiss Tab by John Petrucci | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

Glasgow Kiss Tab by John Petrucci. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[TSJMajesty]

Next, A section from Dream Theater's (henceforth abbreviated 'DT', since there's a lot of 'em! LOL) In The Presence Of Enemies, Pt. 2, called "Slaughter of the Damned." Oh kay.

Incidentally, the chants you hear were done by actual fans in the studio. If I had known about it, I'd have carried my ass up to NY!

I love this riff, but the couple string skipping parts are tricky.

Counted as triplets, it's ~144 bpm.

In The Presence Of Enemies Part 2 Tab by Dream Theater | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

In The Presence Of Enemies Part 2 Tab by Dream Theater. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[TSJMajesty]

The rest of these are counted as sextuplets, so the bpm's slow down.

First is DT Home, @ 88 bpm. I've been working on the 32nd note riff @ ~4:05 for years, but this riff is from a section of the solo:



VERY cool-sounding lick! Why I love Petrucci.

Home Tab by Dream Theater | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

Home Tab by Dream Theater. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[TSJMajesty]

Moving away from DT for just a minute...

This is one of the coolest licks I remember hearing from way back in the day! GODZILLA

Basic Pentatonic Minor, @ ~90 bpm.

Ends on the F# (E/14), but it was way over on the next line, so I didn't copy it; Clip would've been too long just to see that one note.

I don't think this tab is super-accurate, but here it is anyway:

Godzilla Tab by Blue Oyster Cult - Buck Dharma - Lead Guitar - Distortion Guitar 1 | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

Godzilla Tab by Blue Oyster Cult - Buck Dharma - Lead Guitar - Distortion Guitar 1. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[Warmart]

Some of that stuff is so crazy, it burned some of the strings away!

 

[TSJMajesty]

Some of that stuff is so crazy, it burned some of the strings away!

You ain't seen nothin yet! This is still the slow stuff!

 

[TSJMajesty]

Pull Me Under. I hate this fucking lick! The outside string changes are so hard for me. Just gotta take it slow and work my way back up.

All picked (NO legato, as some YT'ers post), then right into a 32nd-note, (mostly) harmonic minor run, @ 103 bpm.

There's another, much easier, sextuplet lick earlier in the solo too:

Just gotta have strong pinky fingers to pull it off well! "Pull" it off? "Pull" off? "Pull" me under? Is that like a triple entendre? (Or is it a sextuple?)

I'm here all week!!

Pull Me Under Tab by Dream Theater | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

Pull Me Under Tab by Dream Theater. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[TSJMajesty]

Another DT song (big surprise huh?) Invisible Monster 106 bpm

I posted about the 32nd-note part of this solo awhile back. The way JP puts it together is pretty cool, imo. But this part is the sextuplet section, since that's what I'm mainly focusing on right now (even though I do play the whole thing to the end. I can get it fast enough where it starts to sound 'Petrucci-esque', then I look at the metronome and go, Fuuuccckk Me!

Maybe some day, if I get through this exercise.

Here's the tab, but I made some fingering changes to make it easier.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Pull-offs. Mr. Crowley ~107

Another one that kills me. I can just about play that last lick at tempo, but because this one involves pinky pull-offs, it's no where near tempo. Idk

 

[FracKing]

Most of these don't sound like a video game yet...
Patiently waiting for Vinnie Vincent...!

 

[TSJMajesty]

I forgot about DT's Scarred, so I just added it to my list. This is one I've also been using for practice for a few years now. Not too bad, @ 104 bpm. It has more 2 N.P.S. licks in the solos. Here's the sextuplet sections I use as exercises:

Then this section (@ 8:34 in video)

And this very cool, string skipping ending (It has a 32nd note descending riff btw these 2 sextuplet parts)-

 

[TSJMajesty]

This is the legato (it's all legato, even though some notes are shown picked) part of the solo from In The Name of God, @ 109. It's F harmonic minor, so it has some tough finger stretches!



Ignore that last measure (it's not tabbed in the right key- I transposed this for E Std tuning. JP plays it in C std.) It repeats then continues on, and gets into some wicked 32nd note legato that I haven't begun to tackle just yet.

This is one that has really helped me in several ways:

• Building pinky strength
• Breaking the finger dependence between the pinky and ring finger
• Improving hammer-ons from nowhere
• And in general, helping me to focus on doing the pull-offs w/o hitting any adjacent strings.

It's a workout!

Then this part is the unison ending, @ 9:53 in the vid. It can be played several ways; I chose one that uses inside string changes. Again, it's been transposed to E std, so those sweeps leading into it aren't right, nor is the ending "Re-Intro."

Stuff is getting faster! The string changes are the hardest part, and keep me from playing it up to tempo. At least I know what needs the most practice.

I don't have a tab to link to. Since I play it transposed, I had to watch a few vids, and edit the songsterr tabs myself. And that tab is all kinds of wrong!

 

[TSJMajesty]

If you're into this kind of shit, don't do like I did. Before I even got into working on these challenging solos, I had to go back and re-work several bad habits in my technique. Like preventing any note overlap when changing to a different string.

Figuring out various ways of keeping open strings from ringing, even picking up the harmonics can be an issue with high gain tones!
Working on pick slanting. Accenting. Holding the pick in a more ergonomic way for these fast picking licks.

I went backwards for quite some time before I started making gains.

One of the very first things I did was to simply play triplets on the open D string:



Getting them even, and fluid, with the proper accents took a bunch of time with the metronome, since I had simply never bothered trying to play stuff accurately. I wish I had!

Anyway, this riff may as well be the next one. It's the A major scalar descending run here, @ 112 bpm:

Overture 1928 Tab by Dream Theater | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

Overture 1928 Tab by Dream Theater. Free online tab player. One accurate version. Play along with original audio

www.songsterr.com

 

[TSJMajesty]

I've got several others, but I'm gonna jump to the mother of all sextuplet runs, Bark At The Moon.

It's at a blistering 144 bpm, at the end of the main solo. Idk if I'll ever get this!

Lots of tabs get this wrong. The one I posted is correct. Uncle Ben (Eller) says so! It actually doesn't "work" w/i the context of the key, and the part of the solo that leads into it, but it is what it is.

Here's his lesson:

 

[la szum]

Killer thread, Tom!

 

[TSJMajesty]

Killer thread, Tom!

Thanks Dave!

 

[TSJMajesty]

This next one is just legitimate shred! Meaning, if I just go for it as fast as I can, I can sometimes land it at the end. But it's sloppy, I don't hit the downbeats, and my arm gets tense. Which is why I'm going back to slowing these down and working back up.

DT Stream of Consciousness: 125 bpm (if you count it as sextuplets.)



See, it's not that hard!!

When I first learned the riff, I couldn't figure out wtf he was doing. I need to "see" where the lick comes from, to help me figure out where to do the position shifts, and where to make string changes. I finally figured out, that even though it's played across 6, it's actually a 7-note pattern:

3 down, 2 up, 2 down, like this, on the high e-

21-19-17-19-21-19-17
19-17-16-17-19-17-16
17-16-14-16-17-16-14
16-14-12-14-16-14-12

The bold notes are on the downbeat.

Of those first 4 groupings on the high e string, he shifts the pattern down 1 note of the scale each time, but as it continues onto other strings, he does skip the shifted notes, (from the scale) but he keeps that same 7-note pattern until he gets to the final one on the A string. Then it changes a bit, and the lick syncs up a little better with the downbeats.

I first tried shifting my hand at the same 7-note interval, but I found it easier to shift down each time I couldn't reach the next lower note with my 1st finger. So neither the pattern, the beat, or the positions shifts line up with each other! So it took some serious practice! And trying it a few different ways until I landed on the one that makes the most sense.

Also, the song is played in Eb std, but I transposed it for E std tuning:

Couple things about that tab: The transposed part start after that first note in the 5/8 bar. (Iow, that first note is wrong, so ignore it, or play it a half-step lower.)

Also, when I edited this tab, I couldn't figure out how to fix the # of notes in that last measure of 6/8 (the tab had all sorts of mistakes), so I just placed those 5 extra notes in the first part of that same measure. You'll play them right after the B/17, just before the e/21 bend.

All in all, this "7-note across 6 note divisions", pattern lick is just math. Play groups of 7 long enough, and you'll get back to the downbeat. (Although this part of the solo is not quite that elegant. Whatever; it's Petrucci-shred.)

 

[TSJMajesty]

A couple from my favorite guitar player (of course):
A very fast (140 bpm) ascending run from Fatal Tragedy (that I would totally rip off)...

That occurs right here:




And this one, which I really like, because it's just so articulate, and a great punctuation mark for the solo's ending!
This is from Blind Faith, @ 128 bpm:

I'm pretty sure he plays this on a baritone tuned to A std, so for E std, just drop it down 7 frets.




These riffs are great to learn, because once you can play one of them, you can adapt the technique into anything similar, either from an existing song, or something of your own to add some flair to a solo.

Sure, you're gonna sound like Petrucci doing it, but that's definitely not a bad thing!

 

[2112]

Pull-offs. Mr. Crowley ~107

Another one that kills me. I can just about play that last lick at tempo, but because this one involves pinky pull-offs, it's no where near tempo. Idk



View attachment 32558

Pinky pull offs are punishing. Randy plays that part (in this clip anyway) with his ring finger anyway