Ok, I’m your uber l33t lead guitarist, and I always thought I was yet to find a piece I couldn’t play. Yesterday, I learned to play Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses. I had most of the solos worked out, and could improvise on the rest, but there was one particular part which I couldn’t break. That was the very start of the intro riff! I had it figured initially, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reproduce it. The first bar of the riff goes like this:
|-----------------15---------14-------| |-----15------------------------------| |---------14--12------14-----------14-| |--12---------------------------------| |-------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------|
That second note, played on the ‘B’ string in the 15th fret, produces a higher octave ‘D’ than the first note played on the 12th fret. This note was what had sounded right a few minutes ago! And the same sounded as a higher octave note now, as it should.
In the actual intro, the two notes sound as the same low octave note. I tried playing the first 12 twice, instead of the 12 and 15, but that didn’t sound right either. I thought about it. What the heck. Then I got that sound again! When the first two notes are played at a certain speed, one after the other, their vibrations overlap, in phase, and it makes the 15 sound as if it’s continuing the initial 12. Phew. There are so many noise making techniques I work out and discover, but this is so out of the blue. I never thought of playing with wavelengths, and even harmonics. A whole bunch of new techniques have arrived. Now when I started expecting that, the whole riff sounded right. The timing was right, and the notes sounded as expected. This is one good lesson why I always tell my students to follow their ears and mind, rather than the notes in a score book.