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Standard Tuning in Prog Metal!! (Riff Lesson) — Transcript

by The Prog School · 2,371 words · 434 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01[music]
0:06[music]
0:13[music]
0:15>> When I think of progressive metal,
0:16especially modern progressive metal,
0:18standard tuning is not the first thing
0:20that comes to my mind. I think of low
0:22tuned seven, eight string, or even six
0:24string guitars dropped really far. But
0:26there's a lot of prog in standard
0:27tuning, of course, a lot of classic
0:28prog, but also a lot of progressive
0:30metal. So I'm going to talk about three
0:32bands today, two which I've covered
0:33fairly often, and one which I've never
0:35talked about here. We're going to break
0:36down some standard tuned riffs cuz I
0:38think it's incredibly useful in this
0:40style of music to not always drop your
0:42guitar super far. So if you want the
0:44tabs and sheet music from this lesson,
0:46as well as all of my other lessons, you
0:48can join my Patreon or become a channel
0:50member here on YouTube. I also am
0:52available for private lessons at the
0:53moment. I have some openings, so hit me
0:55up if you'd like some private lessons.
0:57The links to all of that is in this
0:58video's description.
1:02[music]
1:10[music]
1:16First up, we have this awesome riff from
1:18the Funeral Portrait by Opeth. Now Opeth
1:20uses standard tuning a lot, especially
1:23on their early albums, and this is a
1:25really cool riff. It's going to mix a
1:26bunch of different techniques together,
1:28and it's a lot of fun to play. This riff
1:31happens after the chorus in the song,
1:32and it doesn't happen again. I kind of
1:34wish they would have brought it back
1:35somewhere, but this has always been one
1:37of my favorite riffs. Now there's two
1:39guitar parts happening here that are
1:42similar for the most part, but there's a
1:43few places where they do something
1:45different. So on the left side in my
1:47recording is Peter's part, and that's
1:49what I have filmed on the video. I
1:50thought it was a little bit more
1:52interesting, that particular part. And
1:53then Mikael's part is panned hard right,
1:55and that's how they do it live, at least
1:57in a couple of the videos I watched. On
1:59the it sounds like Michael's parts are
2:01panned hard left and hard right, like
2:03double tracked. And then the one I
2:04played is in the middle. So, I kind of
2:07did more of the live approach here with
2:09my recording. This riff is using mostly
2:11the E Phrygian dominant mode. I know
2:14Michael is not much of a theory guy, but
2:15that's where most of these notes are
2:17coming from. Phrygian dominant is the
2:19fifth mode of harmonic minor. In the key
2:21of E, that would be the fifth mode of A
2:24harmonic minor. So, we have E F G sharp
2:27A B C D. [music]
2:30Kind of has that exotic sound. Now, they
2:32do bring in one other note in this riff
2:34as well, and that is the D sharp, which
2:37would be
2:38the major seventh in Phrygian dominant.
2:41[music]
2:45I've heard this called the double
2:46harmonic scale or the Hungarian minor
2:48scale. A really nice sound. And in this
2:50riff, they're going to mix those two
2:52sounds, so the Hungarian minor and the
2:54Phrygian dominant. So, you'll have D
2:56sharps and D naturals throughout the
2:58riff kind of interchangeably. The very
3:00beginning of the riff, and this is
3:02Peter's part, does that right away. So,
3:04you have D natural
3:07and then D sharp.
3:09Then we go into this run.
3:13[music]
3:16A little bit of a finger twister.
3:19So, these first notes ring together.
3:23The rest of that is right from that
3:24Phrygian dominant sound.
3:30[music]
3:31I love the vibrato at the beginning of
3:32this riff, too. It gives it some extra
3:33stank.
3:35[music]
3:38Next, we have some octaves.
3:41[music]
3:42And it ends with this lick.
3:46That once again is mixing those two
3:47scales. So, you have D sharp
3:49[music]
3:52D natural.
3:53So, the whole riff
3:55>> [music]
4:03[music]
4:06>> And then Michael's part is a little bit
4:08simpler. So he's going to start the
4:10same.
4:13[music]
4:15And then there [clears throat]
4:16just going to pedal the open low E
4:18string. And what's happening is
4:20[music] slowly
4:22opens the palm mute.
4:25[music]
4:29And then when the octaves happen
4:34his part is descending, which is working
4:36in parallel motion
4:38with the other guitar parts. So the
4:39first guitar part
4:42and this part
4:45very cool sound. They kind of go
4:46opposite directions here.
4:50[music]
4:50And then he ends with the same lick.
4:55So there's parts where they're together
4:56and then there's parts where they're
4:57separate as well. So this part
5:05[music]
5:10very fun riff, one of my favorite Opeth
5:12riffs to play. And here it is with the
5:14tabs on the screen.
5:17[music]
5:23[music]
5:32[music]
5:39[music]
5:45[music]
5:52[music]
6:00This next riff is from a band I've never
6:02talked about on this channel, but I get
6:03asked about them a lot, and that is
6:05Cynic, a really important progressive
6:08metal band. I'm planning on doing a full
6:10lesson on Cynic at some point, probably
6:11something off of Focus, maybe covering
6:14an entire song cuz that's such an
6:15important album. But here we're going to
6:17take a look at Integral Birth off of
6:19Traced in Air from 2008.
6:23[music]
6:33[music]
6:37This riff is in F sharp minor, which is
6:39cool cuz we're not going to be relying
6:40on that open low string like so many
6:42riffs do. It's nice to have a sound
6:44that's a little bit different. And this
6:45is mostly triplets here. The rhythm part
6:48goes like this.
6:54[music]
6:58And then that repeats the same all the
6:59way to the end. And the second ending
7:04you get this open chord
7:06ringing. So we have F sharp minor
7:12rising to A. It's kind of like
7:14F sharp minor. I probably think of this
7:16as C
7:17C sharp minor over C sharp and then A.
7:20[music]
7:21But those are just implied chords.
7:25[music]
7:26Then we have this shape, which is a D
7:28major seven sort of sound.
7:31We have B minor seven.
7:35So F sharp minor,
7:36D major seven, B minor seven.
7:39One, six, four in the key of F sharp
7:41minor, all right out of the scale. The
7:44trick here is the string skipping that's
7:46happening in this riff.
7:48We have a pretty big string skip right
7:50away from the low E string all the way
7:52to the B string.
7:53[music]
7:55That can be pretty tricky. And then this
7:56part here
7:58[music]
7:59so you have inside and outside picking
8:01here.
8:02Outside, inside, [music] outside.
8:04Pretty tricky. It takes a little bit of
8:06time get used to that particular riff.
8:09[music]
8:10We get that little run there.
8:14And then the ending part
8:17[music]
8:18with this open chord. Really fun riff.
8:22Uh a little more challenging than I
8:23thought it was going to be to play just
8:24listening to it, but those string skips
8:26are quite difficult. Now there's a lead
8:28part happening over top of this that
8:30Paul is playing. So the rhythm guitars
8:32are hard panned left and right, which is
8:33how I recorded this. And then the lead
8:35part is down the middle.
8:38[music]
8:42[music]
8:49[music]
8:51It's following these chords. We start
8:53like this.
8:55[music]
9:00That's the first half. We have F sharp
9:01minor
9:03with the added ninth.
9:05Whammy bar dip.
9:07All these notes are ringing together.
9:09Then we have this.
9:11Little triplet run in groups of two
9:14[music] which fills in the space left by
9:16the rhythm guitarist.
9:20Got some scale runs.
9:24And then holding out this shape.
9:26[music]
9:27B, C sharp, G sharp over top of that B.
9:32It's really like a B minor 69 kind of
9:34sound.
9:36Very cool. The second half. [music]
9:45So we start with the same F sharp minor
9:46chord.
9:49And we play this shape. G sharp, D, F
9:52sharp.
9:53Really crunchy voicing. Not sure what
9:55that's happening over.
9:56[music]
9:59It might be happening over
10:02[music]
10:04over the G sharp. So kind of a
10:06almost like diminished sort of sound.
10:11So See, depress the after you play that
10:13chord.
10:14And you scoop back up on this major
10:16seventh, so it's D and C sharp.
10:19This is all in the key, but it's really
10:20dissonant.
10:23We do this run again.
10:26Then we have a mixture of fretted and
10:27open string notes ringing together.
10:30[music]
10:33So the whole second half.
10:42It's a really nice lead part, and the
10:43way that it interacts with the rhythm
10:44guitars is very cool. I'm going to put
10:46both parts on the screen with tabs so
10:48you can see how they work together.
10:52[music]
11:02[music]
11:06And lastly, no lesson on standard tuning
11:08in progressive metal would be complete
11:10without Dream Theater. Dream Theater has
11:12a ton of songs in standard tuning. Their
11:14first two albums are completely in
11:15standard tuning, and then there's at
11:17least one song off of every album except
11:19for Train of Thought that are in
11:21standard tuning. So it's something they
11:22do fairly often.
11:26[music]
11:31[music]
11:36[music]
11:41[music]
11:48[music]
11:56[music]
11:58We're going to take a look at the
11:58beginning of Beyond This Life from
12:00Scenes from a Memory. This is a riff
12:02I've always really loved. It kind of
12:04combines this low art, high art thing.
12:07So you have a riff that feels almost
12:09like something Nirvana would have
12:10written, a very like cave manny kind of
12:12riff, but it's in five four, so you have
12:15this prog element as well. So the riff
12:16looks like this.
12:20[music]
12:25So we're in the key of a G sharp minor
12:26for most of this song. This first part,
12:29we're doing some chromaticism through
12:31these chords.
12:32[music]
12:34Those chromatically moving chords.
12:40And at the end we get full chromaticism.
12:42[music]
12:45Now what's really cool here is the
12:47rhythm. So we're in five four and we're
12:49using the classic Mission Impossible
12:51five four rhythm. So three three two
12:53two. One two three one two three one two
12:56one two one [music] two one two two.
13:03So you have this just hard hitting
13:05almost punk rock kind of riff, but it's
13:08done in five four, so you have it mixing
13:09with that prog element. So as I
13:11mentioned it's kind of that low art high
13:13art thing which is one of my favorite
13:15things about prog in general. And then
13:17to counteract this riff, we have a much
13:20more involved riff that is single note
13:22based and this is kind of blues based at
13:26least for the most part.
13:28[music]
13:31So we have the
13:34[music] five five.
13:36We have the major and minor third.
13:39Kind of a blues sort of sound.
13:42[music]
13:44And this is something they do throughout
13:45this entire song. There's a bunch of
13:46riffs later on in the bridge that are
13:49basically just pentatonic kind of riffs.
13:54[music]
13:55All of those riffs and in fact they do
13:57an actual blues progression
14:00in the solo of this song for the guitar
14:02solo and for the keyboard solo.
14:04Really cool stuff. And that's kind of
14:06happening in this riff too. We have this
14:08sort of bluesy sound, but we're using a
14:1015 eight time signature. So we have four
14:13four and then seven eight.
14:17So that's four four and then
14:20And the seven eight I'm thinking of is
14:22four four with just an eighth note cut
14:24off. So four
14:26four
14:27four [music]
14:28three.
14:35And that pull off in there
14:37helps to flip the picking around so that
14:39you start on a downstroke each time.
14:42[music]
14:46You play that part three times and then
14:48you have this variation at the end which
14:49is in six four and this is probably the
14:51most complicated part of this entire
14:53riff.
14:57[music]
15:06So you have some sixteenth notes in
15:07there and the fingerings are a little
15:08bit weird too.
15:11Jump [music] up to the eighth fret
15:12up here.
15:15And that's how Petrucci is playing it. I
15:17watched a few live videos.
15:20[music]
15:24That was the one I had to practice the
15:25most to get this down and then after
15:27that it goes back to the first power
15:29chord riff.
15:30>> [music]
15:35[music]
15:39[music]
15:51[music]
15:55[music]
16:03[music]
16:08[music]
16:16[music]
16:21[music]
16:24>> Love this riff. Super fun to play and
16:26it's so high energy, especially in the
16:29context of where it is on the album
16:31coming after Fatal Tragedy. It kind of
16:33kicks this song off with a bang and then
16:35of course this song goes
16:36all over the place later on. You get the
16:38Frank Zappa part and then there's a
16:40heavy variation of this same riff
16:46which is all triplet based. A very cool
16:48way to bring that riff back and then
16:50there's other parts that use this same
16:51riff
16:56underneath solos and and all of that. So
16:58this riff kind of ties the whole song
17:00together, but it's really cool when it
17:02first enters in 5/4. I know a lot of
17:05modern players will avoid standard
17:06tuning, but there's a lot you can do
17:08with it. I've actually written quite a
17:09few songs in standard tuning myself.
17:11Here's a couple of examples.
17:15[music]
17:24[music]
17:35[music]
17:40[music]
17:45[music]
17:52[music]
17:58[music]
18:03[music]
18:10[music]
18:13Now hopefully this shows you that you
18:14don't necessarily have to down tune
18:16really far to play progressive metal.
18:19And in fact, even if you're using
18:20extended-range guitars or tuning way
18:22down, sometimes it's nice to write a
18:24riff that's a little bit higher in
18:25register. That way,
18:27it can counteract the parts that are
18:29super low and you get that kind of back
18:31and forth. And even when I'm writing on
18:33seven and eight-string guitars,
18:34sometimes I'll purposely choose riffs
18:36that are just using the top six strings
18:38to kind of counteract the lower notes.
18:41Uh so it's definitely something worth
18:42learning even if you're someone who does
18:44play in lower tunings or in
18:46extended-range guitars. Learning some
18:48classic progressive metal riffs in
18:49standard tuning is never [clears throat]
18:51a bad idea. Now, as I mentioned, if you
18:53want the tabs or sheet music from this
18:55lesson, you can join my Patreon or
18:56become a channel member here on YouTube.
18:59And if you enjoyed this lesson,
19:00subscribe, hit the bell notification,
19:02like, comment, share.
19:03And I'll see you all in the next video.
19:05Till then,
19:06stay proggy.
19:10>> [music]
19:19[music]
19:24[music]

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