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Quick licks: intermediate #3

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By Guitar Techniques ( Guitar Techniques ) published 11 July 2011

A Morello-style riff and Surfing era Satriani

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Intermediate lick one: Rage riffing

Intermediate lick one: Rage riffing

Drop your sixth string down from E to D for this Tom Morello style riff . The double-stops in bars 2 and 4 and the octaves in bar 3 sound great if slurred instead of picked individually.

Use a solid Marshall type crunch to get the most out of this RATM style riff. Neck single-coil pickup into a Marshall overdrive is the most authentic for Morello-isms but bridge humbucker into heavy distortion would also sound very effective.

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Intermediate lick two: Satch chordal tapping

Intermediate lick two: Satch chordal tapping

Reminiscent of the early Satriani 'Surfing' era, we've got 5ths from the fretting hand and two-note tapping from the other to create some interesting and musical chording. The chords follow D Phrygian scale and the 7/8 signature can be counted as 3+2+2. Clean, percussive tone here.

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