Monday, October 27, 2008

Sweating Bullets Solo lesson

Posted by Jon in • Guitar Lessons, Guitar Noize YouTube Channel,

This week I was listening to Megadeth’s ‘Countdown to Extinction‘ and it suddenly struck me that Marty Friedman’s solo in the track ‘Sweating Bullets’ was almost a technical exercise covering a few techniques which I thought was worth sharing.

UPDATE: Reader Yann pointed out that this solo was actually played by Dave Mustaine which when you think about it makes much more sense. Thanks for the info Yann!

As you can see I recorded a video of myself playing the solo using a backing track I found on guitarbt.com and I have tabbed a few examples that I thought would be useful for both beginners and advanced players. The first example is the chromatic run staring at 0:23 and ending around 0:28 in the video above. This is a great alternate picking exercise and you need to be very precise with your left and right hand coordination. For beginners this is a great exercise as I always find descending runs more tricky than ascending. Use a metronome or if you have Guitar Pro download the tab for this song and use the trainer feature which I set to start at 50% of the actual tempo and each loop it automatically increments slightly giving you a chance to build up speed for the lick. If not use a metronome, start slowly (80bpm maybe) and concentrate on playing every note with a quick clean attack, try to keep your left hand relaxed. I have tabbed the example as triplets but you can still think of them as 3 sets of 4. If you’re confused just forget the actual notation and concentrate on the tab and playing the 4 notes per string, then as you get more comfortable work up to quaver triplets at 165bpm as per the record. The tab for this example is below:

Example 1
Ex 1

The 2nd lick I have tabbed is the palm muted ascending triplets that immediately follow Example 1. Again this lick uses alternate picking starting with a downstroke and ends with a pull-off (G-F-E) and ending on a crotchet F ready for the final example. Use your palm to mute the strings until the final 2 beats of the second bar (the pull-off lick).

Example 2
Ex 2

The 3rd and final lick is the section that follows Example 2. This part is a really great exercise in hammer-ons and pull-offs. The entire lick except for the final beat of the last bar are all quaver triplets and you need to focus on keeping these consistent and the hammer-ons and pull-offs smooth. The 1st and 3rd bars are the same pattern moved down a string but pay attention to the pattern in the 2nd bar which is a little trickier in a descending form. The final bar is a simple alternate picked descending pentatonic run.

Example 3
Ex 3

I hope you enjoyed this departure from my usual posts to share a few playing tips and tricks, if you want more like this why not use the feedback tab and add an item to my UserVoice Feedback forum.

If you want to buy the official TAB book for ‘Countdown To Extinction’ I have included a product link below.

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Ovidiu - GuitarFlame.com on 10/27 at 07:36 PM

Nice one, Jon! You know, watching you made me wanna try this myself!! I have always been charmed by Marty Friedman’s way of soloing and Megadeth’s solos has always been technical chalenges, with or without MF there.

Jon on 10/27 at 07:40 PM

Thanks Ovidiu, yeah this is a fun little solo which is kind of like a few exercises in one without you feeling like you are practicing boring scales wink

It is also one of the Marty solos that doesn’t have crazy sweep picking which I struggle with! The weirdest thing about Marty is watching his right hand technique, he looks like he shouldn’t be able to play as fast and precise as he does it’s quite amazing!

on 10/28 at 09:28 AM

Sorry but I do remember that this solo was done by Dave Mustaine himself. This is the reason why it is less technical and less melodic, although this solo is very good.
BTW, I really enjoy your website, keep posting stuff each day! smile

Jon on 10/28 at 12:05 PM

Hi Yann thanks for the info, you know now that you say that it makes a lot of sense. Dave’s solos do seem to err on the side of exercise based rather than the melodic and arpeggio madness that is a Marty Friedman solo!

Celina Gomes on 10/29 at 10:03 PM

Thanks for sharing. I have enjoyed that

Ricky Sharples on 11/03 at 05:46 PM

Every time somebody helps out with classic material like this, it only helps keep the legend alive!

Sammy on 11/04 at 09:52 AM

Dude, you’re damn good.

Jon on 11/04 at 11:14 AM

Thanks Sammy! and I’m glad you thought it was helpful Ricky smile

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