Breathe

Here’s the main theme of Mr. Fastfinger song Breathe. It’s the actual composition, rest of the song was improvised along the way and keeps changing during performances. This is the only copy I could find of the transcription, paper copy. In the left corner you can see Lasses notes made in the studio about the song structure. Well it actually ended up being shorter. with extremily slow tempo, we realize there shouldn’t be too many rounds of the parts.

Btw. I composed the theme almost 20 years ago. Was planning to put if on Mr. Fastfinger’s debut album but couldn’t make it work.The way to make this really happen for this second album was to get Thomas, Lasse and Kalle into the studio at the same time. we recorded the basic tracks all together.

Enjoy and Breathe!

Download Breathe (live)

CD owners: Check out the Fretboard game page to get your BACKINGTRACK from the studio version of this song.

The Power of the Power chords II

Was showing a part from Big Trummors to a student and this made me think about the power of 5 chords once again. There’s something very clever with the main part / main riff and how lines and melodies are added on top of it.

Big Trummors-powerchords-clip

1. THE POWER CHORDS

Here’s the simple foundation. The power chords which were the initial start for the whole composition. All the chords actually go perfectly in G minor scale. So with these powerchords only you would easily hear it as minor.

2. THE MELODY

But let’s put the melody line on top. This came as the second thing when I was composing this track. Huuuh, The B note makes the G5 chord turn into major chord. But it works, and makes everything sound suddenly much more interesting.

3. ARPEGGIATOR

Later I added this Alice Cooper “poisonish” guitar arpeggiationg line on top of it all. It gives some of the chords more color. This arpeggiatior can be heard after the solos.

4. THE HARMONY

If you stack up all the harmony of all these parts together you could come up with such chords as these. For something like a single acoustic guitar arrangement these chords could come up handy. Go fo it!

There’s actually more stuff happening on top with all the synths and strings but I let you analyse it as your homework.
Big Trummors is a proof of how strong and clever power chords actually can be. Powerchord leave a lot of room for the melodies and other instruments to play on. With a little extra harmony stuff on top of these chords you can do amazing sh*tuff!

If  you wish to practice some of these parts individually here’s the Guitar Pro 6 file for you: Big Trummors-stack.zip And here’s Guitar Pro 5 version.

Zing Zing – The Solo

Oh yeah. Someone requested this tab a looong time ago when I put out some other parts of this song. Here it is.

A very flashy 80′s hairy kind of solo me thinks. I even made a video out of it. Enjoy.

This starts with some double bends and harmonics and stuff. But the real fun begins in bar 5. Was thinking of George Lynch when I did this diminished string-skipped stuff. these licks mix diminished and halftone-wholetone scales/arps in a cool way. More halftone – whole tone in bars 9-11 this time all altenate picked.
In bar 19-20 some typical octave arpeggio playing. The final has some more of nice alternate picking 16th notes.

ZING ZING – solo – backing
Note the cool groove this 7/8 beat gives the track. Very inspiring beat for soloing. Makes you wanna fly.

Zing Zing-Solo -GuitarPro6 zipped

Scary Arpeggio Sequencing – Daemons & Ghouls

Here's a transcription to the scary chorus part of Deamons & Ghouls. Here's the Guitar Pro file zipped.
Real tempo is 205 bpm, but listen and see how it's played in half speed on the video.

Here's some guiding notes for you. If you dare to try it out!

Bars 1-2:  Arpeggiating across the strings. I suggest pure alternate picking here. Note the eighnote rest in the beginning and 3rd beat of bar one. These humble rests make the music more interesting I think.

Bars 3-4: Again rest in the beginning. But this part feels slightly trickier for me to play. After experiementing I decided to do some economy/sweeppicking to make it smoother. But I can say I still needed to practice it a little!

Bar 5-6: Again rest in the beginning, it's a habit! This is more relax and fun. Try experimenting with some palm muting if you like.

Bars 7-8: Switch into melodic playing here. Put all your soul to these notes!

Bars 9-10: Here we want to get slighty more playful. Use of grace notes does the trick. Grace notes are tiny little ornaments. Quick passing notes played in front of an actual notes. Here we have a two part lesson on grace notes just for you! http://mrfastfinger.net/index.php/tag/gracenote/

Bar 11: Single note on first string, 15th fret. Use your whammy bar to dive, but experiement how you get more depth and feel to the dive!

Bar 12: A true surprise element for the ear. Cromatic decending line. Totally out of place but it sounds beautiful as it lands on the right note.

Bars 13-16: It's good to get back into simple melodic playing again. Until the Sweeeep! Sweep begins with more interesting F6 add9 arpeggio but returns in classic major triad. Modern and classic tones combined.

Bars 17-19: Revisit the beginning of the solo. Repeat is good!

Bars 20-21: This is tight and can be try to get it clean and nice. Practice slow and work the tempo. Patience, patience!

Bars 22-22: We end with a variation of the little theme we first heard during bars 5-6. The final note is finished with whammy bar vibrato!

Enojy, have fun and good luck! Write me any questions and comments here, youtube or facebook.

“Epic” transcribed

To celebrate the 5 YEARS of Guitar Shred Show some more. Here’s the full transcription to song “Epic” from the Mr. Fastfinger debut album. It’s one of the strongest tracks on the album and features plenty of interesting guitar action for studying purposes.

“Exploding Solo” transcribed – update (1/2011)

To celebrate the 5 YEARS of Guitar Shred Show I’m giving you this present. I’ve recieved sooo many request to do the transcription to this solo during the past five years. This is the album version. The original Guitar Shred Show.com version is slightly different.

Anyways this solo is indeed a demanding one. Don’t try to master it all at once. I’d recommend practicing a bar or two at once. Starting very slowly and making sure everything gets clean and nice.  And after all the repeats finally speeding it up to fastfinger tempo. Hope you enjoy the two pages of terror techniques…

Zing Zing – The Tap

Here’s the tapping version of the same Zing Zing pre-chorus. Based on the same chord progression of C- Dm – Bb – F as the riff. On the song the riff changes into this tapping pattern on the second (and third) round.

Mr. Fastfinger – Zing Zing – The Tap

Zing Zing – The Riff

Sometime ago there was a request to transcribe the pre-chorus riff from Zing Zing. Here it finally is!

Mr. Fastfinger – Zing Zing – The Riff

The riff is mostly just arpeggiating the chords from the progression of C – Dm – Bb – F. Plenty of palm muted notes you find. Pay attention to some of the dynamics in playing. Especially the Bb notes in bar 7. In bar 6 there’s two guitars playing the slided melody line. Feel free to experiment if you can play the both lines together. Also remember to keep focus on your timing!

Creatures of the Midnight (aka Mr. Fastfinger Turns Mark Knopfler)

…Well, for a while maybe:) Happy to let you know that Mika wrote a guest column for Guitar9.com. It’s about mind game methods for creating the right solo for the song…

Go to Guitar9 for the whole story, transcription, audio and analysis on “Creatures of the Midnigt” solo.

Big Trummors – The power of five chords

5 chords aka power chords are absolutely beautiful. They leave more options on what you play on top of them. As you probably know 5 chords are made of just the root and the fifth note. No thirds to make it major or minor. Some people say 5 chords are not really chords at all, it’s just the interval of five. I love power CHORDS!

Here’s a funny thing that happened with the solo of Big Trummors (from Mr. Fastfinger’s album). When I was working on the solo I automatically started playing on Aeolian mode / minor scale together with minor pentatonic scale ( with perhaps a hint of blues pentatonic).