Pain, Pain, Pain… Part II
 

By Daz Malekpour
 

This month I’m following my usual route of upping the stakes, and this time it is deep into the realm of tapping. Instead of giving numerous monotonous chromatic patterns, I thought especially about how anyone – and indeed I – could blend this garble of information, odd licks and exercises together into something… anything… musical. Well, recently I formed a nu-metal band to get my sorry arse back on stage, and (perhaps more importantly) write some decent songs with great riffs – in addition, I aimed to write a short, structured, unaccompanied solo lead spot. This was mainly inspired from seeing a certain Mr. Vai tap away at the end of the live version of Answers, but I would definitely do it my way; it would have to be  dynamic, emotive and flashy. Inevitably that resulted in the odd two-phase spawn you see stretching away below. Technically, it’s pretty weird like the rest of my music and juxtaposes slower chord tapping with fast licks for dynamic effect.A live mp3 will be up at my site soon (and my band’s forthcoming site), so please check it out if you can. Next month I’m looking at tapping jazz, in
the relatively more sedate style of Stanley Jordan. Until then…
Best wishes to all,
~d

dazmalekpour@hotmail.com
http:\\www.mp3.com\dazmalekpour

Performance Notes:

Despite being a simple ‘show-off’ piece in essence, it kinda grew on me, and it wasn’t any longer a waste of space in which to play as fast as I can for the time given… only half time. Oh yeah, and you won’t need a pick for these, so it might leave Neo-classical fans feeling a bit helpless. Please remember that they are excerpts, and the full piece is much longer with a fair amount of improvisation at the end… so don’t write in blasting my compositional skill just yet. Phase one is simple enough as long as you get the fingering right – lean over and keep the one-fret-a-finger rule (basically, use your pinky fingers… yes, that was a plural…) with your tapping hand and you should have no probs. The speed is free time, so go as you want; I personally find that a lot of the tonal character is lost if played too slow, and blazing through it at a constant fast speed gives a great effect. The first section basically carries on in melody until (hmmm) the second phase comes in – basically its balls to the wall shred, and the first section flirts in and out of E and F diminished scales, only a semitone apart to get that out of phase, incredibly tense sound. This resolves to an E minor tone for the 6

fingered tap second part; it is also very similar to the tapping break in Oddity, another of my pieces,
and a lot of you were asking me how that was done, so here’s a clue. Use strict three and three fingers from each hand. Ok, so it might not be the easiest bunch o’ licks in the world, but I think its fair to challenge you, what with the site being called Insane Guitar and all… And please remember this is all really to expand your mind and approach, to spice up your own creative ideas. Cop a lick or two, but just think about how to involve anything you like with your own playing. Apart from that, have fun…