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Hey everyone, Luay Rifai here
I'm putting together a short series of videos to talk a little bit about my new album
"Timeless Truths"
and at the same time I'd like to share with you
some of my personal approaches to the guitar,
the tone, and overall structure & composing.
The first song on the record is entitled: "Silver Bullet"
and really I just wanted to open with a song that is powerful, dynamic, and has energy.
But also I wanted it to have some groove to it too.
Melodic guitars, along with a nice free middle-section that enables me to do
some soloing over a light background.
So the entry riff goes something like this:
[music]
So you notice it's straight forward rock riff, with a dynamic motion
Then I go into doing the main rhythm, which is:
[music]
Very simple! But, throughout the song I just approach it differently everytime
and play it with ever-so-slight variations here & there.
However, all those together when they add up
Will give its own identity.
So the triplet and quadriplet feeling,
[music]
They give it this kind of groovey quality.
Then you have the accents on certain notes, with the right amount of accent.
[music]
Gives it that kind of a playful, swingy feeling, but in the same times it's still a rock rhythm.
And this is really one of the things I'd like to focus on in here, because
If you read music transcription or guitar tablatures
It will only tell you for instance to do palm muting over certain notes and what not
but it will not tell you where to do it on the guitar strings,
and will not tell you the amount of pressure that you have to apply,
it's not going to specify how much you let the ring out or not during the palm mute.
and that really differs, because you can do some plam muting right over here and it will
sound like:
Or do it over here and sound like:
Or even here:
and each one has a very different and unique sound,
and if you can't really tell right now,
just roll back your master volume while doing that.
[music]
So when you do that, you can actually hear very slight tinge of pick-scrape with each
note
that makes each note just ditinct, and it really depends on how you hold the pick
I personally hold it at around a 45 degree angle that I attack the string with,
just to give it the right amount of a pick-scrape that distinguish each note
which makes it sound polished and more clear to hear.
[music]
So you see how something that may sound ever-so simple,
once you dig deeper and perfect the details, it will sound more polished and sound more
like you.
and really it all relates to the song that you're playing
and the sound you want the listener to perceive.
Another example is bends actually.
Where I had another riff in the song:
[music]
so you hear:
it's not...
and it's not...
it's really:
[music]
and then you add the punctuation in between.
[music]
So give your rhythm a feeling, and just do it over and over again
until you think it really clicks, until you believe that it has this quality
that just sounds like you!
Just sounds like what you want it to be that makes it very unique than anyone else's.
...and that's "Silver Bullet"!