Learn How To See The Fretboard Differently In This Marty Friedman Guitar Lesson
Marty Friedman’s guitar style is unlike anything other’s in the guitar playing world due to his masterly mixture of melody, exoticism, and good ol rock n roll.
And I don’t know about you, but like there to be more to guitar playing than an olympian sprint to finish a tricky, finger-twisting lead solo, which is why I made this guitar lesson about Marty Friedman.
You’ll see how he thinks about the chords he’s playing over, some interesting ways to make a melodic line, as well seeing him in action on some youtube videos you may have overlooked…..
For this article, I decided to change things up and do a powerpoint video while going between his tabs and parts of his own video lessons.
Like I say in the description for this YouTube video though, there’s a whole lot to any player’s style and that’s why this is so long. I didn’t want to give some generic tips and leave you wanting more.
However I couldn’t cover every inch of his style either, but you’re in luck.
In part 2 of “Hell Raising Lead Guitar,” I wrote over 25 pages of content going over nothing but Marty and his licks. I break down the arpeggios, the chord progressions, and the scales he’s using in order to help you realize how you can use them yourself.
But before you take a look at that…..
I hope you’ll check out my free courses I made where I cover modes and target notes. Two concepts you’ll need to lock down if you want to use everything else in this lesson.
Slides Of This Marty Friedman Guitar Lesson
Marty’s Nuances – 3:14
How To Use The Hirajoshi Scale – 10:45
Substituting Arpeggios – 16:50
Progressions To Solo Over – 20:18
Marty’s Solos You Should Study & Learn – 27:40
Other Resources – 28:35
Marty’s Nuances
Will choose notes that are “out of key” and bend into a chord tone. For instance, G# will bend a half note to A for any chord that has A in it (F#m, A7, D, etc.)
Likes to use exotic scales like the japanese hirajoshi scale and the spanish gypsy.
Substitutes various arpeggios like diminished, major, and minor
Will use exotic rhythm patterns like 5s and 7s (see video)
How To Use The Hirajoshi Scale
E – F# – G – B – C
They can’t be used with many chords
Remember, scales are used to accent chord tones
Substituting Chord Arpeggios
Let’s use Em again: E – G – B
Em is similar to G major (G – B – D) and C (C – E – G)
One secret of Marty’s style is applying diminished arpeggios to his lines.
F# dim = F# – A – C
Progressions To Solo Over
Tornado Of Souls: (B5) – (G5) – (E5) – (F#5) – (A5)
Hangar 18: (D5 – Bb5) – (B5 – Bb5)
Dragon Mistress: D5 – F5 (for the first couple of bars)
Tibet: E – (D – A)
Marty’s Solos You Should Study & Learn
Hangar 18 & Tornado Of Souls (all of them) off Megadeth’s “Rust In Peace” album
Everything You Can Find Off Of His “Dragon Kiss” solo album. Jewel, Dragon Mistress, Anvils, etc.
Music For Speeding
Lots of tabs and guitar pro files can be found at ultimate guitar
Other Resources
Marty’s instructional videos: Exotic Metal Guitar by Hotlicks, and Melodic Control (search YT)
playitloudblog.com/exotic-guitar-scales-how-to-play-spanish-guitar/
Guitar World Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMkb4pxOc30
Rust In Peace tab book has errors in it but is still useful
Notes On The Video
These scale patterns are one thing that I mentioned in the video that I feel I didn’t explain very well so let me do that again now.
What I was explaining was a little trick I had to turn this Pentatonic scale into a Hirajoshi scale, and it’s pretty simple.
E Minor Pentatonic consists of E – G – A – B – D, right?
Well to make the hirajoshi scale I’ll add the notes F# and C, but remove A and D.
That gives me E – F# – G – B – C.
And both of these sets of notes put together makes the E Minor pentatonic scale: E – F# – G – A – B – C – D.
Pretty simple, or more complicated now? Ugh sorry.
Like I say in the video you’ll have to learn the notes of the fretboard to get this, but please give it a shot. It’s one of the keys to making this a lot easier.
Another thing I mentioned was the diminished arpeggios, which Marty uses all over Rust In Peace and Dragon Mistress (his solo album).
Marty will throw these in between progressions like those listed above under “Progressions To Solo Over.”
For instance, he’ll either substitute Edim for Em or insert Edim before going to D or F#m.
And as for the progressions, I got them all by checking out either guitar tabs I had or guitar pro files I had lying around.
Eventually I’ll gather this stuff up and make a downloadable zip file for all of you to get a copy of this stuff.
Guitar Pro and tabs have been the key factor in allowing me to break everything down and learn directly from these players.
Using your ear along with this stuff is going to be what gets you ahead of everyone else who’s struggling to keep up with these guys.
Still Want More???
Then you REALLY need to check out my course called “The Play It Loud Method” which contains detailed information about the guitar styles of Slash, Marty Friedman, Randy Rhoads, George Harrison, AND Eric Clapton.
(more are being added from time to time too….)
What I do is I’ll take at least 10 of what I see is their favorite licks…….
I’ll break down the rhythms, the musical devices, the chord progressions, AND the scales behind it…..
And explain it all in a way that tells you how each player was seeing the fretboard when they chose the notes that compose these licks.
