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I've recently switched from being a 3-fingered blues/rock artist of 10 years (you know, thumb hanging halfway over the fretboard on fretboard hand with the palm close to the neck, while using the third finger for all the bends)to a 4-fingered, pinky included, type style with the fretboard hand out from the neck like I was playing jazz bass. I'm working on the pinky with the exercises found on this site and essencially I want to learn to ... I forget the term, but solo really fast in a metal style.

My question is: Everybody knows the art of soloing is repetition. I need some of the basic patterns that are used in metal soloing, ie the patterns that are repeated going up and down the fretboard really really fast. I see some riffs here and there on this site, but no patterns besides some chromatic exercises.

Thanks,
Dave

i didn't really make sense there. anyway i found an example.

On the high E string ... 10 7 9 10 9 7 ... where 7 is the root of b minor and the notes are played as 2 sets of eigthnote triplets, or whatever 6 notes in the span of a quarternote are called. Then you just work that down according to the scale. (ie 10 7 8 10 8 7 on the B string etc).

that's the kind of thing i was talking about.

If you just wan't to improve your pinky-skill, you should try playing a lot of legato (and trills) up and down the neck with your pinky.. I made a fast example here where you should hve your index on the seventh fret, hammering with your ring and pinky

7---h9---p7---h10---p7---h9---p7---h10

Do this up and down the neck!

Good Luck!

Take a cue from Paul Gilbert.

Take any 4 notes in a scale, lets say, A minor

A B C D

A lick like..
-------------
-------------
--------5----
-5-7-9----9-7
-------------
-------------

You just alternate pick that. And you keep doing it. Over, and over again.

Michael Angelo for example, bases most of his lead playing on patterns like this.

yea yea that's what i'm talking about... have about 15 or 100 of those types of riffs that you work up to light speed with, punch the dirt pedal and the kids are like WHOAA MAN!!! next on the metal list are tapping and arpeggio techniques, both of which i thought of as gimmicks until i grew my hair long and those i've seen throughout the site. but keep those patterns coming if you know more of them, great stuff.

Tapping and arpeggios are just techniques.

Or, you could think of them as tools. Forget about which notes are being played, just HOW they're played. Then you can apply it to anything you want.

totally what he said, totally.

blew my power supply so it'll take me a bit to compute this info.

Anyway, after playing a gig, I've come to realize that it's going to take me one hell of a long time to get up to speed. ie: I want to be as good with the pinky finger as I am without it (Jeff Beck hand position, say, compared to classical guitar position for those metal riffs, shredding) but I don't want to take another 10 years to do it. Can I play killer metal riffs or "shred" without the pinky finger? Because I sure as hell can't play anything else with it.

Stupid pinky finger and the desire to shred.

(Note: I can play anything else in rock. Anything. After a month I've come to realize that I don't want to lose all that just to be able to single pick a scale at an incredible rate. Maybe life outside the pentatonic box isn't meant to be for me. I was a jazz bassist for 9 years and at least 5 on the piano and violin so it's not as if I'm ignorant about theory. It's just the influencing styles up to this point on guitar didn't require the pinky finger or anything other then the pentatonic scale.)

Well, you could i suppose.

But you'd be restricted to three notes per string in most cases. And some of the positions would get really uncomfortable.

And of course you can't do cool 4 note per string patterns.

I suppose I could keep the two techniques seperate and eventually meld them together (switching between 3-fingered and 4-fingered riffs) when I get better with the pinky side of it. Either way, I'll write about this subject again in two years and tell you how it's going. I'm really just killing time on this site because I'm trying to avoid my landlady. haha. Maybe I need a day job.

Hats off to all the different riffs and techniques on this site. Amazing. We're all going to be pro in no time. But the sound file quota? Hey and I had another question:

|------------5---7---9---
|--5--7--9---------------

May be a dumb question but that should be (or normally is) played with fingers 1,3, and 4 respectively on each run, right?

It should be played however you're most comfortable playing it.

I do it with 1 2 and 4 usually. But depending on where my fingers are, and how tangled up they are, it might be 2 3 and 4. Or any other combination.

You can stretch fingers 2,3, and 4 over 6 frets?

nevermind, i see what you mean