The three highlighted modes—Phrygian, Aeolian, and Locrian— are staples of heavy metal. Even their names sound metal. To demonstrate the difference in how each sounds, we wrote a single-string metal riff on the low E string, and changed the fretted notes of the riff according to each mode’s formula.

AEOLIAN
If you play the G major scale starting on the 6th degree, E, you get the E Aeolian mode, which is also known as the natural minor scale. In the first version of our riff [Fig. 1], the highlighted pitches (F#, G, B) seen below are pivoted against the root E pedal tone, giving it a distinct E Aeolian sound:

Play the riff slowly at first, and gradually increase the tempo to about 100 bpm. Watch out for the meter change in the second measure and use alternate picking and palm muting to achieve the full effect. (For a more open and raging feel, try playing it without palm muting as well.)

PHRYGIAN
Next we’ll take a look at the Phrygian mode, which comes from the 3rd degree of the major scale. This is a bit darker than Aeolian as it includes the very metal-sounding b2nd. Here are the pitches and degrees of E Phrygian:

Notice that the only difference between the two modes is the lowered 2nd, but it creates a distinctly different sound. Here is the same riff, but now with pitches from the Phrygian mode. You’ll notice how using F instead of F#, which is only a half step above the root, E, adds a darker shade of evil to the riff.

LOCRIAN
Locrian, derived from the 7th degree of the major scale, is the darkest of all modes. It includes the same pitches as the Phrygian mode with the addition of a b5th—the devil’s interval. We’re talking pure evil here, folks!

Now try our riff again, but this time with the full modal malevolence of Locrian.

So you can see how just a few pitch alterations can really change the feel and sound of a riff—or lick, for that matter. By harnessing the power of the modes, you can attain an informed grip on note choice and effectively add new shades of black to your next epic metal opus. -GE

Thanks to: GuitarEdge magazine

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Source:  freeguitarvideos.com

If you are still suffering from sloppy guitar playing, the cause is likely unwanted string noise. For some guitar players, improving guitar technique may have nothing to do with how they are playing the notes they ‘want’ to hear. The sloppy noises we sometimes hear are caused from the notes (strings) we do ‘not’ want to hear.

If you are articulating the notes you want to play accurately, but you are still hearing sloppiness in your playing then this article will greatly help you to improve your guitar technique by eliminating string noise.

To effectively mute guitar strings we do not want to be heard, we need to use two totally different sets of muting techniques: One to stop unwanted noise from LOWER (in pitch) strings; and another to mute the higher (in pitch) strings.

Although there is more than one way to mute guitar strings, some methods offer advantages that others do not and are therefore (in my opinion at least) better.

Muting The Lower Strings

Many guitar players use the palm of their picking hand to mute lower strings. Although this technique is pretty good at keeping most of the lower strings quiet there are two big disadvantages with this technique.

1. Muting with your palm will cause a slight delay in the muting of a string which has just been played a moment before. This delay causes brief moments of string noise. This happens for two main reasons:

• The flesh of your palm is much softer than the side of your thumb and therefore takes more time for your palm to actually stop the string from sounding.
• It is not easy to get your palm in the perfect position to consistently and reliably mute strings that are adjacent to the one you are playing in all playing situations.

2. When you use your palm to mute noise, the natural position of your guitar pick (when not playing) is now away from the strings. This is what I call your “Natural Point Of Rest”.

When your pick is at rest up and away from the strings (in between playing each note), it causes your picking hand to work harder and significantly increases the chance for sloppy playing, string noise and slower picking speed.

A great solution to these problems (and to improve your guitar technique) is to mute with your picking hand thumb for all lower (in pitch) strings like this.

Notice that the “Natural Point Of Rest” when using thumb muting is now ON the strings (as shown in the picture above). This greatly reduces wasted motion and enables you to pick faster with much less effort.

source: Musiccarreers.net

There are five main challenges that electric guitar players must overcome in order to learn and master guitar technique. These five guitar technique challenges are divided into three groups:

1. Awareness
2. Sounds you ‘want’ to hear (the notes you are attempting to play cleanly)
3. Sounds you do ‘not’ want to hear (the sloppy sounds you sometimes hear such as unwanted string noise)

Today we will take a look at the first two groups. In Part 2 of this article series we’ll focus on the last group of guitar technique challenges.

Focused Awareness – Many guitar players are not fully aware of every imperfection in their guitar technique. Some of these players do sense that ’something’ may be wrong, but are not sure about exactly what their specific guitar technique problems are. Obviously, you cannot effectively correct a technical problem until and unless you know exactly what it is.

There are two main ways you can approach this:

1. Record yourself playing a something you want to improve on. Listen back (carefully) at 25%-33% speed so that you more easily identify any unclear notes, excess string noise, scratchy noises between the notes, inconsistency in your pick attack, etc.). You may or may not be able to hear everything on your own (many people simply can’t yet) and you may or may not be able to ‘correctly’ identify the cause of each imperfection present in your guitar playing. If you can that’s great, but if you’re not sure then…
2. Work with a guitar teacher to evaluate your playing and use that feedback to begin the process of making any necessary changes to your technique. Not only will a good teacher help you to play clean by telling you ‘what to do’, but also because he will hear problems that you may not really be hearing.

IF you have an excellent ear, you should be able to identify the fine details of your problem, if not, work with your guitar teacher.

Articulation – The First Half of Two Hand Synchronization

The second step is to focus on your articulation. Articulation is the first half of two hand synchronization. To play cleaner you need your hands to fret and pick each note at precisely the same time (simultaneously).

There are three critical things you need to do to improve your articulation:

1. Use a clean guitar tone when practicing (no distortion and NO effects!). Distortion and effects will mask any imperfections in your articulation, so do not practice with them when focusing on “Articulation” (the rules will change when we talk about “The Release” in the next section).
2. Play loud enough so that you can truly hear what is happening as you are playing.
3. When you are practicing something slowly MAKE SURE that you do NOT change ANYTHING about how you approach and articulate each note. Fact is, most guitar players actually play very differently when playing slow compared to when playing fast. If you change anything in the way you are articulating the notes (such as playing with a lighter touch, using a weaker or stronger pick attack, changing your hand position, pick angle etc.) you will NOT fully improve your technique because the sound you make when playing will be different and therefore harder to detect and identify any problems with your articulation.

The Release – The Second Half of Two Hand Synchronization

The third step toward cleaner playing is ‘the release’. For most guitar players ‘the release’ is the hardest problem to detect and correct. That’s generally because once players articulate a note cleanly, they ignore what immediately comes after (small sloppy noise in between the notes or two notes slightly ‘bleeding’ together.

Go to part 2

Source:  musiccarreers.net

The Tab

The Video:
B.B. King lick lesson video

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